Goals from Gianluca Scamacca and Jarrod Bowen- the first of the current Premier League campaign for both players, saw West Ham pick up three much needed points as they edged fellow strugglers Wolves 2-0 at the London Stadium in their first game after the September international break. The Hammers have traditionally been poor just after the international break in recent seasons, but were able to beat Bruno Lage’s side for only their second PL win of the season as they climbed out of the drop zone.
Moyes chose to give many of his new summer signings a start here, instead of introducing them off the bench, as has been the case so far. Both Scamacca and Maxwel Cornet were drafted into the starting XI, as was veteran defender Craig Dawson, with German international Thilo Kehrer moving to the right side of defence. With Nathan Collins suspended, Wolves were forced to shift veteran Ruben Neves, usually a midfielder by trade, into defence.
Wolves played like a side that has struggled to score goals- they had found the back of the net only three times coming into this fixture. And it was epitomised by Rayan Ait-Nouri’s chance just before the interval- instead of shooting at Fabianski from a promising position, he chose to lay it back into the box, but with no Wolves players around, West Ham were able to comfortably clear it away.
The win- also the Hammers’ first of the league campaign at home, was a massive one, and also resulted in Wolves’ owners showing Lage the door. West Ham have endured a tough start to the campaign, and Moyes will be hoping that his side have turned a corner with this victory. Three of their next four league fixtures are against Fulham, Southampton and Bournemouth- all winnable games on paper. The 2-0 triumph against Wolves also marked a rare clean sheet for Lukasz Fabianski, and Zouma-Dawson together in defence with Kehrer on the right, on the evidence of this performance, might well be the way the Hammers line up in the immediate future.
While the scoreline might not suggest it, Wolves comfortably had more of the ball- 61% to West Ham’s 39. The visitors had six corners to the home side’s solitary one (and that one came in second half stoppage time!). However the Hammers were clinical with the chances they had, and some of the link up player between Scamacca and Bowen had the home fans salivating- see the pass from the former to the latter in the buildup to the first goal as an example.
Wolves introduced new signing Diego Costa off the bench, and he did have one very good chance- a header that you would’ve expected his younger self to put away, but the veteran headed wide here. Nevertheless, there were definitely some promising signs in the visitors’ attack after Costa and fellow substitute Chem Campbell came on, but the Hammers were able to hold on for a crucial win.
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