1. A top team performance
West Ham United’s 3-0 Premier League win at Nottingham Forest was not just down to one or two individuals – it was a complete away team performance.
From Mads Hermansen in goal, to his back four, through the midfield – including impressive debutant Mateus Fernandes – to the centre forwards, the Hammers were solid, unified and did not allow their hosts to settle at any stage at the City Ground.
A first clean sheet, first win and first three points of the 2025/26 Premier League season were the result.
The Claret and Blue Army erupted each time their team found the net, through Jarrod Bowen, Lucas Paquetá and finally Callum Wilson, before celebrating with their players at full-time.
It was a top team performance.
2. Sensational Summerville
Few players can surely have made a bigger impact on their return from injury than Crysencio Summerville did in Sunday’s victory.
With the game goalless with just eight minutes to play, Summerville was introduced by Head Coach Graham Potter in the hope of sparking a late winner for his team.
And my word did the Dutch winger do just that, setting up Jarrod Bowen to fire West Ham in front within two minutes and winning a penalty which Lucas Paquetá converted to score within four.
Blessed with searing pace, elusive dribbling ability and much more, Summerville was simply sensational on his comeback, nearly eight months after he suffered a hamstring injury at Aston Villa in early January.
3. Brilliant Bowen
On Friday, Jarrod Bowen was recalled to the senior England squad.
On Saturday, an interview in which he revealed his summer potato field training schedule was broadcast by the BBC.
On Sunday, the captain was back doing what he did best, putting all those pre-season yards into action on their far firmer turf of the City Ground.
Bowen was brilliant, again, running repeatedly at the Nottingham Foret defence before curling his team in front with an unerring strike eight minutes from full-time.
The No20 has now scored seven goals and assisted four – eleven direct goal involvements – in his last 12 appearances for the Club dating back to the start of April.
Add in two goals and two assists in pre-season and you can understand why Thomas Tuchel has included Bowen in his squad for two FIFA World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Serbia to be played in early September.
4. Wonderful Wilson
Callum Wilson certainly made his mark in West Ham United’s 3-0 Premier League win at Nottingham Forest.
Introduced from the substitutes’ bench on 63 minutes, Wilson could have scored a hat-trick with a little more luck.
The England international had four shots and hit the target with all four, forcing Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels into three saves and scoring his first goal for the Club with an unstoppable header in the first minute of added time.
Wilson created his first two chances for himself, dribbling into a yard of space before testing Sels, before finding the net with an unstoppable header into the top right-hand corner from El Hadji Malick Diouf’s pinpoint cross.
He then turned from hero to villain, at least in Jarrod Bowen’s eyes, as the skipper slalomed through the home defence before Wilson took the ball off his toe and saw his shot kept out by Sels, when Bowen himself had visions of scoring the Goal of the Season!
All in, though, with Wilson’s valuable hold-up play and clever movement, this was a performance he could be hugely proud of.
