Captain Jarrod Bowen hailed his West Ham United teammates for showing huge character to bounce back from an early setback and claim a crucial first home win of the 2025/26 season, and first under Nuno Espírito Santo, against Newcastle United.
Seconds after Bowen had crashed a fizzing shot against the woodwork, the hosts founds themselves a goal behind when Newcastle’s Jacob Murphy arrowed a shot into the bottom corner of Alphonse Areola’s net in just the fourth minute.
In the face of adversity however, the Hammers worked themselves back into the contest, and after a home penalty was overturned and a Lucas Paquetá free-kick was pushed onto the post, the latter found the leveller with an eye-catching strike from 20 yards.
With the momentum in West Ham’s favour, they snatched the lead just before the break through a Sven Botman own-goal, and a solid defensive effort in the second half was then rewarded when Tomáš Souček slammed in a late winner from close range, to make it 3-1.
“It’s a massive result,” Bowen said. “It’s obviously been a difficult period, and as I’ve said before, we’ve know that we’re the only ones who can change things by putting in a performances.
“We know what we’re capable of, and I think we’ve shown that today. We went 1-0 down, we didn’t get the penalty, we hit the post, and then you’re wondering when our luck is going to change.
“But we stuck at it, and we showed what we can do. We haven’t done that enough, but I think the more we realise it, the further we can go as a group. We’ve got some much potential, and in the end we’ve managed to get a comfortable win.”
Brazil international Paquetá echoed Bowen’s view that such a performance was overdue, while he was delighted to net his fourth goal of the season to help power his team to a much-needed win.
Our No10 said: “I think today we’ve shown our character, played positively and stayed focused right until the end.
“We knew it was going to be hard to get the three points, but we played well, we stayed together and we kept going until the very end.
“I was happy with the goal. Sometimes I try to pass in those sorts of situations, but Jarrod and some of the other players have said I should shoot. I had a go, and I was just happy to help the team.”
Finally, skipper Bowen made it clear that victory over the Magpies must be the start of a change in fortunes for West Ham, as they look to mount a charge up the Premier League table over the coming weeks.
Next up is the visit of newly-promoted Burnley, who sit one place and three points ahead of the Irons after ten games, and our No20 has only the full share of the spoils on his mind ahead of the November international break.
He added: “We’ve got another home game next week, and the pressure is on us to deliver. Today is the standard, and the benchmark that we have to deliver in every match now.
“We’ll enjoy this win, but we know we have to be ready to go again against Burnley. We have one more game before the international break, at home, and it’s massively important.
“We have to approach it with the same hunger and desire, and then our quality will show through. We’ll be ready, and we’ll be looking forward to it.”
