Jarrod Bowen felt West Ham United produced one of their best performances of the season, despite losing 3-0 at Chelsea on Monday evening.
The Irons controlled the game for long periods at Stamford Bridge, but ultimately paid the price for being unable to turn possession and promising positions into goals.
Bowen also had what looked like an equaliser ruled out midway through the first half, when he appeared to have scored from Tomas Soucek’s knockdown, only for referee Chris Kavanagh to whistle for what he believed was a foul on Chelsea goalscorer Thiago Silva, instead of allowing play to continue and the incident to be reviewed by VAR. Replays suggested there was little contact, if any.
As it was, a free-kick was awarded to the Blues and Frank Lampard’s side went on to score twice more through Tammy Abraham late on to complete victory.
In between Chelsea’s first and second goals, the Hammers played as well as they have all season, passing the ball crisply and pressing their hosts into a succession of hurried clearances.
I feel at 1-0 we were massively in the game and we just needed a goal, but it didn’t come, then they went up the other end and scored two really quickly which put the game to bed
Jarrod Bowen
“At 1-0, I think we were always in the game and in the second half we were pushing and pushing and just waiting for the right moment, but then they scored the second goal which was unfortunate for us, the way the [Timo Werner] shot rolled into Tammy’s feet and he puts it away,” Bowen observed.
“They then scored another one straight away which kind of killed the game, so we feel like we shouldn’t have been on the end of a 3-0 defeat because we played really well with the ball and without the ball as well.
“We had a lot of chances and we limited them playing out from the back and they were just kicking it longer, which was a great credit to us, the way we pressed without the ball.
“I feel at 1-0 we were massively in the game and we just needed a goal, but it didn’t come, then they went up the other end and scored two really quickly which put the game to bed. Fair play to them, they’re a really good team and we want to be challenging up against these top teams and after the performances we’ve put in this season, there’s no reason why we can’t.”
West Ham go into Christmas tenth in the table with 21 points from 14 games, and Bowen feels they have a foundation to build on over the busy festive season, when they face Brighton & Hove Albion, Southampton and Everton in the space of six days.
“It’s an up and down season,” he concluded. “We’ve had games where we’ve not played as well and we’ve got the three points, while tonight we played really well and we’ve come away with a 3-0 defeat.
“It’s really tight this season and we’ve got a lot of games coming up over the festive period and we want to pick up as many wins as possible, and if we do before we know it we’ll be back up in the top seven.
“We can’t be disappointed because we’re not a million miles away. It’s a long season and there are going to be ups and downs and it’s just part of the Premier League season, I guess.”