West Ham 4-0 Wolves: Hammers turn on the style to send Tottenham into the Premier League relegation zone with seven games left
Over to you, Tottenham Hotspur. West Ham are up for this fight. Are you?Belief is spreading around the London Stadium that the Great Escape is on after this statement victory. A unity is growing, too, one thought lost for good.As the scoreboard ticked towards the final 15 minutes, the home supporters rose to their feet as one: ‘Stand up, if you love West Ham!’ How different to the boos and protests that have long filled this ground.When Taty Castellanos netted his second goal, moments after his first, his team-mates embraced the January signing like a cherished old friend.Under Nuno Espirito Santo, they are coming together right when they need it.West Ham were seven points adrift when they lost here to Nottingham Forest at the start of January. Tottenham were 13 points above them. Last night, for the first time since August 2015, Spurs ended a day inside the bottom three. And how fitting it was that former Arsenal man Konstantinos Mavropanos scored twice to put them there.West Ham are out of the drop zone for the first time since four weeks ago, when their draw with Manchester City lifted them to safety. That was just for a day. How long will it last this time? Nuno Espirito Santo (right) has West Ham believing they can avoid Premier League relegation Jarrod Bowen (left) was in fine form, picking up two assists at the London Stadium ‘It doesn’t change anything,’ insisted Nuno. ‘Next week, we play after all our opponents. We have to focus on ourselves and today we did the job.‘The first half was tough. We were lucky. The moment we scored, everything changed.’ If the Hammers are to survive, how vindicating it will feel for Nuno to send down either Spurs or Forest, two clubs that believed they would be better off without him. He will watch both their games on Sunday.‘Anything can happen,’ the Hammers boss had declared in a pre-match video played out over the big screens before kick-off. ‘It’s going to be a fight.’It sure is, but it took a while for his players to roll up their sleeves. There was little of that buzz from the end of that remarkable FA Cup tie last Sunday when West Ham fought back from two goals down in stoppage time to take Leeds the distance.West Ham were ominously slow and tepid as Wolves threw the first punches. Angel Gomes fizzed a ball across goal and only a desperate clearance by Kyle Walker-Peters denied Hugo Bueno a tap-in. Yerson Mosquera nodded another chance wide and Adam Armstrong forced a save from Mads Hermansen with a header from a long throw.‘If someone said this was a team that was going to lose 4-0, I wouldn’t have believed them,’ said Wolves boss Rob Edwards. ‘They punished mistakes and those two quickfire goals in the second half cost us the game.’When you have a player of Jarrod Bowen’s quality in your side, you’re never out of the pub brawl even if you’re not the first through the door. Debate has rumbled over whether Bowen is the kind of grab-you-by-the-scruff-of-the-neck captain West Ham need. It’s perhaps that lack of main character energy that will see him miss out on a place in Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad to wingers who score and set up far fewer goals than him.Add another three assists to his tally. Only the post denied Bowen a goal to boot. As he so often does, here he quietly went about making the difference.It was his link-up with Mateus Fernandes that slipped in the rusty Crysencio Summerville, returning from a calf injury, for his side’s first real chance only for him to blast over. It was Bowen who fired straight at Jose Sa midway through the first half and, again, when he got on to the end of Mavropanos’s header. Former Arsenal man Konstantinos Mavropanos scored twice to lift his team out of the relegation zone
Make your 7 picks by 12.30pm every Saturday to win £1,000*ArsenalBournemouth*18+, excludes NI. Terms and conditions apply It's now over to Tottenham, who are in the bottom three, to decide if they are up for the fightAnd it was Bowen who curled in the cross before half-time that picked out the defender to open the scoring, and again with the corner late on for Mavropanos to volley in his second.How much of an upgrade for Nuno it was having Mavropanos back in the starting line-up in place of Max Kilman, who gave away one penalty against Leeds, should have given away two, and was booed by his own fans.The goal brought West Ham to life. Bowen cut past Ladislav Krejci and bent a shot against the woodwork. Workhorse striker Pablo nearly made it two before the break only to be denied by a fine low save from Jose Sa before slipping in Castellanos for the second. What astute January signings they are proving to be.It was Bowen, of course it was, who played him in for the third just 99 seconds later.Both of Castellanos’s shots, the second deflected, crawled over the line. When all is said and done, will West Ham do the same? MATCH FACTS AND PLAYER RATNGS WEST HAM (4-4-1-1): Hermansen 7; Walker-Peters 7.5, Mavropanos 8, Disasi 7, Diouf 6.5; Bowen 8.5, Fernandes 7, Soucek 7, Summerville 6.5 (Traore 78); Pablo 7.5 (Potts 78); CASTELLANOS 9 (Wilson 82)Subs not used: Areola, Todibo, Scarles, Wan-Bissaka, Kante Booked: Fernandes, CastellanosScorers: Mavropanos 42, Castellanos 66, 68Manager: Nuno Espirito Santo 8WOLVES (3-5-1-1): Sa 6; Mosquera 5.5 (Arokodare 71, 6), S Bueno 6, Krejci 6; Tchatchoua 5.5, Bellegarde 6 (Mane 61, 5), Andre 6, J Gomes 5.5, H Bueno 6.5; A Gomes 5.5 (R Gomes 61, 5.5) Armstrong 6 (Hwang 71, 6)Subs not used: Bentley, Wolfe, Lima, Gomes Booked: Bellegarde, MosqueraManager: Rob Edwards 6Referee: Jarred Gillett 7
