Having won just one game in seven, West Ham came roaring back into form with an overwhelming 4-1 win over Watford. Since beating Liverpool in November and reaching a top four position on the table, the Hammers had seen an inexplicable slump in form.
Their manager, David Moyes said: “I’m smiling. It’s a long journey. Everyone who has done this job will tell you how hard it is to win games and to stay in a job sometimes. I am demanding really high levels but we have great resilience and toughness and that showed.”
He added: “It was a poor start to the game and we needed to be strong to come back and go in 2-1 up at half-time. The biggest thing for me was for us to play a game 72 hours ago and go again and score four goals away.”
Moyes was particularly pleased with the performance of Jarrod Bowen. “He played very well and his assists were very important, as well as his link-up play and combinations. Making the goals were a sign of his maturity. Competition for his position for England is very tough and that’s where he’ll find it difficult to break in. But we still want more goals and assists from him.”
It started so well for the hosts, playing their first game in 18 days, they got an early goal. Josh King, in the fourth minute, slipped a short pass to Emmanuel Dennis – a new signing this season – who took a couple of clever skips at the edge of the 18-yard box to strike a sublime goal.
West Ham soon began to attack and Said Benrahma was unlucky his curling shot from 20 yards hit the crossbar. But in a space of two minutes West Ham scored twice. In the 27th minute, Bowen played through Tomas Soucek who thumped in the equaliser from 12 yards.
That was followed by Kiko Femenia losing possession to Manuel Lanzini who found Michail Antonio and his cross was hit, with a deflection from Adam Masina, into the net for the second goal. Bowen was then denied a goal by VAR for a foul just before he had found the net from a cross by Soucek.
But in the 58th VAR found in favour of the Hammers when goalkeeper Daniel Bachmann brought down Bowen in the box and the resulting penalty was converted, for the third goal, by veteran Mark Noble who was in the side for the suspended Declan Rice.
Finally, the Hammers tally of four was completed by substitute Nikola Vlasic, a 25million new signing this season from CSKA Moscow, when he guided in a brilliant cut-back from Bowen.
Watford manager, Claudio Ranieri, said: “I don’t want to make an excuse but having the players for just one day to prepare, it’s not easy. We started really well but then conceded two goals in two minutes. Then when we had momentum after half-time, we conceded a penalty. We must improve ourselves.”
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