DOUBLE TOP FOR BOWEN
Hammers turn corner as Canaries look goosed
BACK in business and back in the top four.
There are few easy games in the Premier League — except this Norwich side at home.
Jarrod Bowen lifted West Ham back into the Champions League places and condemned the Canaries to their sixth successive top-flight defeat.
Afterwards Bowen said: “It was a good performance. Norwich are fighting for points.
“We had to put the barricades up a little bit but with our attacking threat we’ve always got a goal in us.
“It would have been nice to get a hat-trick but to get two goals, three points and a clean sheet is good enough.
“We hit a bit of a rough patch and we were disappointed with our performances but that shows the standards we’ve set.
“We look like we’re over that and we’ve got that winning feeling which is nice.”
The only surprise in this contest was that it took so long to break the deadlock. Norwich these days appear to be waiting to be beaten.
You’d have thought reinforcements would have arrived long before the second week of January. You’d have to assume their intended targets don’t fancy the inevitable drop to the Championship.
Poorest
Norwich had conceded 42 goals – the joint-worst defensive record with Newcastle – even before this match.
They’d scored just eight times, by far the poorest attack. They are day-trippers on a farewell tour.
Harsh perhaps but Norwich were kings of the Championship last season. How is it that Brentford, the club that finished 10 points behind them and came up through the playoffs, are 13 points ahead of them in a tougher league?
Questions have to be asked of an approach that has left them as the Premier League’s whipping boys.
They shot themselves in the foot here with yet another diabolical piece of defending, 10 minutes before the break.
Vladimir Coufal crossed from the right, Pierre Lees-Melou jumped and missed it, Brandon Williams didn’t jump at all and Max Aarons watched as Bowen headed it in, unmarked.
Easy. Too easy. In fact, West Ham played much of this match in second gear. Casual at times.
Their passing was intelligent and they’d have gone ahead sooner than they did had Nikola Vlasic not strayed offside to obstruct Tim Krul as Bowen curled an effort in.
Even so, the former Hull man should have had a hat-trick.
Unmarked in the box after just two minutes, he allowed Krul to save when a shot either side would have given the Dutchman no chance.
In the second half Pablo Fornals threaded a ball through to Bowen but his chip floated over Krul and onto the bar.
Effort
A goalbound effort, minutes later, was deflected onto the post. Norwich were hanging on.
Adam Idah produced one of their few chances with a 61stminute strike, pushed onto the post by Lukasz Fabianski.
But red-hot Bowen finished them off with eight minutes left from close range, turning in Arthur Masuaku’s cross.