START THE WAY YOU MEAN TO FINISH
Bournemouth 1 West Ham 1
Bowen ended West Ham’s season with the winning goal in the European Conference League Final in Prague in June 2023. Two months later and he is opening the 2023-24 season with the first goal of the game. Perhaps the strangest thing about this stat is the underpin that the side Moyes has put out this afternoon shows just one change from the side that won the Conference League a couple of months ago, Pablo Fornals in for Vladimir Coufal. Whilst it’s hard to see Fornals fulfilling the role of right or wing back, it’s an attacking change that starts Hammers with a positive focus for their first match of the season away from London Stadium.
It’s the second season in a row that West Ham have been relieved of the need to man mark Callum Wilson, now the bogeyman is scoring against them for Newcastle and not Bournemouth. The psychological change of hearing forty thousand fans screaming your name rather than just eight must have led the striker to spend several hours on Geordie shrinks’ couches in addition to checks for earlier signs of tinnitus than a man of his age should have to endure.
The tedium of transfer speculation around David Moyes and West Ham in the close season has not abated, in spite of the certainty that genuine signing opportunities have only ever materialised in the final weeks of August once the season has started. These cold turkey merchants have filled Twitter screens with their speculative rants for nearly eight weeks, whilst the sane and the overburdened amongst us have enjoyed the summer break on scalded Mediterranean beaches or skimming stones from sewage encrusted river banks.
If a team had to start this Premier League season away from home, this is as preferred a venue as any, a stadium set in a park with a capacity of 11,000. Jarrod Bowen marks it as the first site of his season’s tally when he volleys home spectacularly from the edge of the area in the 36th minute.
Bournemouth aren’t going to take this lying down, nor should they. Solanke draws a decent save from Areola early in the second half, having wriggled free of Aguerd’s attentions, and then Joe Rothwell hits a glorious effort from just outside the area which beats Areola, but pings off the top of the crossbar and away to safety. Then eight minutes from time they grab their equaliser when the substitute Semenyo’s half-blocked shot runs kindly into the path of Solanke who slots it home from a tight angle.
There is still enough time for Ings to misplace his shot from wide on the right after Paquetá’s neat through ball, and then his late header from Emerson’s cross comes out back into play for Paquetá, whose clean shot bounces off the foot of the post with the keeper beaten. Hammers will consider themselves a little unfortunate to have not got all three points.
13 Alphonse Areola, 33 Emerson, 4 Kurt Zouma (captain), 5 Vladimir Coufal, 27 Nayef Aguerd, 11 Lucas Paquetá, 28 Tomas Souček, 22 Saïd Benrahma, 8 Pablo Fornals, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 9 Michail Antonio
Substitutes: 23 Thilo Kehrer, 21 Angelo Ogbonna
Goalscorer: Jarrod Bowen
