Report and free highlights from the Barclays Premier League match between West Ham and Brentford at the London Stadium on Monday night; Jarrod Bowen scores first goals since December 23 to help Hammers to first win since December 28
Tuesday 27 February 2024 07:23, UK
Jarrod Bowen scored a hat-trick as West Ham belatedly picked up their first win of 2024 with a crushing 4-2 victory over Brentford at the London Stadium on Monday Night Football.
It is a result that emphatically ends a run of six games without a win for David Moyes' side, with their last on December 28, and one that means the Bees remain at the heart of the relegation battle with 12 games to play.
Bowen scored his first of the night - and first in the league since December 23 - inside five minutes, and ghosted into the box to guide home a second less than two minutes later.
Neal Maupay halved the deficit shortly afterwards, but when Bowen completed his treble - his first in senior football - after the break and Emerson fired home a piledriver, the game was put beyond Brentford, who have now shipped nine goals in their last three games.
The Bees did manage to pull another one back through Yoane Wissa, but it did not spark the comeback of epic proportions they required.
West Ham move up to eighth as a result of their first Premier League win over Brentford, who stay down in 16th - five points above 18th-placed Luton - where they dropped to after Everton's 10-point deduction was reduced to six on appeal earlier in the day.
The start was frantic in east London - and went just the way West Ham fans would have hoped following a run of eight games without a win in all competition.
A matter of seconds after Tomas Soucek sent his connection on Vladimir Coufal's deflected cross over the bar, the Hammers were in front. Neat interplay saw the ball moved on from Lucas Paqueta to Emerson, whose pull-back from the left was slammed home by Bowen.
Before Brentford had even thought about an attack of their own, it was 2-0. Bowen dropped the ball off to Mohammed Kudus and made a run, totally untracked, into the box, where he had the simple task of converting Coufal's square ball.
With their first and only shot on target in the first half, Brentford did manage to pull one back. Keane Lewis-Potter received the ball from Ivan Toney and slipped a lovely through ball in for Maupay, who stayed composed to fire high into the net beyond Alphonse Areola.
Brentford's defence was by far the busier by the time of the break. West Ham had attempted 13 shots by that point, but a third goal was not forthcoming, leaving an air of anxiety inside the London Stadium.
The third did come just after the hour, though, with Bowen capping a memorable night with the matchball. Sergio Reguilon backed off Kudus, allowing him to curl in a fine cross for the England forward to glance a header over the line.
And then came the fourth. Emerson bowed to fan pressure to shoot from distance after collecting Nathan Collins' clearance and thumped a beauty into the top right corner that left Mark Flekken with absolutely no chance of making a save.
Wissa came off the bench to limit the damage with his fifth goal of the season - and third in six appearances against West Ham - which was confirmed after a VAR review.
West Ham forward Jarrod Bowen told Sky Sports:
"It feels incredible. There have been a few times where I've had two goals but never got that hat-trick. The first two goals were quite quick after each other so it was on my mind at half-time.
"I've always wanted to score that third go so credit to Mo [Kudus] for the ball into the box.
"To get the match ball and to win the game is a really proud moment for me. I was so buzzing inside."
West Ham manager David Moyes:
"Maybe it was getting Lucas Paqueta back that made such a big difference to everybody. I thought we started the game great, played well in the first half and thoroughly deserved to be in front, just disappointed that we missed a couple of other opportunities as well. We did a lot of good things and scored a couple of very good goals, so great to get that result.
"I'm really pleased for Jarrod. I think his performances recently have gone a wee bit unnoticed because we've not played that well and Jarrod's been taking the fight to them in all the games and it's not quite fallen for him, it's not quite happened. Tonight it did. The goals will obviously be the noticeable thing, but his all-round play and the way he's working... he had three or four other runs in the game where he was a threat all night.
"I thought, at 4-1, we should have gone for the jugular and kept wanting to score more and it looked as if we were nearly going to settle for that, so I was disappointed we didn't finish the game off in better fashion. We should have tried to nail it on when we had the chance, but let's be fair, it's our first win this year, which I don't like saying, but it's fact and because of that, I was thrilled we got it. Brentford have been a bit of a bogey team as well so tonight we got rid of that."
Brentford head coach Thomas Frank:
"I think we didn't hit our level individually or collectively today and we played a West Ham team that did well; Bowen was unplayable and Emerson put it in the top corner. We lost the game fair and square. Then there were crucial moments in the game that you need to go your way that maybe could have affected the result and the penalty shout for Sergio Reguilon is a penalty, in my opinion. But I don't want to waste too much time on that; for me it's about our performance and we were not good today.
"It's one of these seasons where we work very hard to find consistency in our performances and we just maybe went to, at this moment in time, the most difficult away ground, the Etihad, against the best team in the world and defended very solid throughout 90 minutes, then we have conceded two inside 10 minutes today. That happens sometimes and we need to find consistency in our performances, no doubt about that.
"At this moment in time, I'm just so irritated about the performance tonight and that's the thing I would look into. Tomorrow, I'll look forward and see what we can do in terms of improvement and putting in a better performance against Chelsea. It's very important in life and football to look forward and not worry too much, but, of course, be very aware of what we need to do better to have a good chance to try to beat Chelsea on Saturday."
West Ham visit Everton in the Premier League next Saturday; kick off 3pm. Brentford host Chelsea at the same time.
