LET’S BE HAVING YOUR TEAM
West Ham 2 Norwich City 0
And so it was that Dean Smith returned to the ground where his Aston Villa side saved their Premier League skins behind closed doors back in happier days. This evening his Norwich City side are fighting for their Premier League lives, or at least to make themselves look like a side capable of attracting a few Championship players to take a punt on joining them in what’s left of the January transfer window.
As for West Ham, there are smiles all round as Aaron Cresswell has finally returned to the fold after his horrific ‘postal’ injury up at Manchester City back in November. His presence seems to up the determination output of the Hammers’ side tonight, and they attack in folds over the first ten minutes, Fornals providing an energetic replacement for the African Nations League absentee Benrahma. The other item of note is Fabianski’s 300th Premier League appearance in his last contracted season. Hammers will surely renew his contract for another year after the transfer window closes.
West Ham attack an organised but slightly brittle Norwich defence from the off, and when they take the lead just before half-time, the only surprise is that it has taken so long. The goal is the result of excellent link up play between Cresswell and Coufal, whose far post cross finds Jarrod Bowen neatly heading past Krul. Bowen has found the net for the second time in the game, his earlier effort, direct from an in swinging curling free kick denied by VAR after Vlāsić is shown to have been standing in an offside position after crucially making a play for the ball.
In the second half West Ham continue their pummelling of the Norwich goal, Vlāsić denied a reasonable shout for a penalty before Antonio ghosts in to beat Krul with his shot, which clips the bar before heading away into safety. A couple of minutes later, Bowen is put through, only to see his beautifully chipped effort beat Krul but clip the crossbar on its way out of play. Four minutes’ later another shot from Bowen beats Krul but hits the post before going out of play.
After a couple of substitutions it is suddenly Norwich who enjoy a decent passage of play, knowing they are somehow only that single first half goal from Bowen in arrears. Pity then that Bowen hits a second seven minutes time, following a neat cross in from Arthur Masuaku, that even survives the predictable VAR challenge.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 41 Declan Rice (c), 15 Craig Dawson, 23 Issa Diop, 8 Pablo Fornals, 10 Manuel Lanzini, 11 Nikola Vlašić, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 23 Arthur Masuaku, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko
Goalscorers: Jarrod Bowen (2)
