Hammers front men steal show from Costa
DIEGO COSTA chugged from a can of Red Bull on the subs’ bench, but it was Gianluca Scamacca and Jarrod Bowen who gave West Ham their wings. With that, they fly out of the bottom three, leaving Wolves in it.
West Ham have been waiting for their £35.5million man to open his Premier League account and didn’t he just. Scamacca’s two touches — the first to flick up the ball, the other to bury it in the top corner — were an elite way to end his drought.
‘Gianluca was out for three weeks with a virus, just in case anybody forgot to put that in their pieces,’ manager David Moyes said afterwards, aiming his trademark stare at reporters. ‘People ask why we’re not playing him but he needs to get a level of fitness.’
Bowen followed that up with his first league goal of the season, a nice response to not featuring for a single minute for England in the recent international break. West Ham boss David Moyes is encouraging Bowen to play his way into Gareth Southgate’s plans via his club — and clinical strikes such as this will do him no harm. Costa did come on for Wolves, but by that time they were 2-0 down. Chances came his way but the ex-Chelsea striker, 33 and having not played pro football since December 2021, was understandably rusty.
Wolves have scored only three Premier League goals this season, the lowest of any side. Something needs to change. Bruno Lage can only hope it isn’t his employment status and his team selection threw up a few talking points.
One was that eight of Wolves’ starting line-up were Portuguese — a new record for a single nationality in a Premier League game, excluding English, of course.
Another was captain Ruben Neves, very much a midfielder, being used in central defence in light of Nathan Collins’ suspension and the sales of Willy Boly and Conor Coady to Everton. It indicated that Lage does not yet trust Toti or Yerson Mosquera, both of whom were on the bench.
Neves embraced his rare role by crashing into Bowen, leaving him on an early caution. Bowen was a nuisance and created a good chance when he cut inside before having a go with his left foot. But Scamacca could not finish the rebound under pressure from Jonny.
When Pedro Neto dropped down injured, Wolves needed to make a change. Adama Traore was warming up on the touchline while Costa was sitting on the bench, sipping his Red Bull. The snarling striker’s debut would have to wait.
On came Adama Traore, but West Ham opened the scoring once the game restarted. When Bowen’s attempt at driving into the box was denied, the ball fell to Scamacca. Twenty yards out, he rasped a shot beyond Jose Sa. It drew admiration when replayed on the big screen.
As we approached half-time, Wolves had gone 30 minutes since their last shot. More was needed and Traore gave West Ham a scare when he met a dropping ball in between Declan Rice and Tomas
Soucek at the start of the second half. His half-volley was struck nicely but it bounced a yard wide, to the relief of Lukasz Fabianski.
West Ham responded by ensuring the win would not be taken away from them. Thilo Kehrer’s blocked shot saw the ball fortuitously fall to Bowen. Taking it on his chest, the forward wrongfooted Rayan Ait-Nouri and buried the ball into the bottom corner beyond Sa.
Lage then introduced Costa, the striker appearing for the first time since a Brazilian Serie A game for Atletico Mineiro in December 2021. He hugged Kurt Zouma — his old Chelsea teammate — and should have made it 2-1 in the 68th minute when Traore’s cross found him. He sent his header wide and knew that was their chance gone.
Daniel Podence did hit the back of the net a few minutes later, but it was offside.
Lage made further changes, to which the away support sang ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’.