Jarrod Bowen is making West Ham forget their striker problem with red-hot form

Jarrod Bowen starting the season like a house on fire is quickly making West Ham United forget about their striker woes in the transfer market.

Bowen scored his third goal of the season in David Moyes’ side’s 2-1 win over Luton Town on Friday (1 September) making it four goal contributions in four matches for the England winger heading into the September international break.

For much of the transfer window, the Hammers had been looking for a new striker, having sold Gianluca Scamacca to Atlanta, leaving Moyes with only Michail Antonio and Danny Ings as his senior striking options.

A late move for PSG Hugo Ekitike looked like it could bring another option while the Hammers were unsuccessful in a late attempt to sign Feyenoord forward Santiago Gimenez [Toby Cudworth, 1 September].

 

But during the early stages of the season, Bowen is allowing the Hammers fans to forget about their lack of a goal-scoring striker, and with West Ham currently being the Premier League’s fourth-highest scorers they seem to have little to worry about.

 

The 26-year-old is currently tied in fourth in the top-flight’s scoring charts, only behind Bryan Mbuemo, Evan Ferguson and Erling Haaland, Brentford’s penalty taker and two genuine strikers respectively.

This is no surprise for Bowen who was a regular goal scorer during his time with Hull City and the 2021/22 campaign at the London Stadium he managed 31 goal involvements for the Hammers in 51 appearances in all competitions.

 

During the first four games of the current campaign, the Irons wide-man’s finishing has been excellent, his three goals coming from 2.28 xG while he has laid on four chances for his teammates despite only managing one assist (Fotmob).

 

There is a fear that this could just be an excellent run of form for Bowen, after all, he has still missed two big chances this season that you would hope your main source of goals would finish. But that is the case for nearly every Premier League forward, with Haaland already missing three this year.

Don’t need goals from strikers

The truth of modern-day football is that you don’t always need one striker to be your source of goals to be a successful team in the top flight, as long as goals are being contributed from other areas of the pitch.

 

Liverpool have been successful in recent years with Mohammad Salah being their primary goal scorer, despite the Egyptian operating from the right wing in most of his appearances. While it is unlikely Bowen will register a ‘Salah level’ of goals this season, he has shown he can be prolific.

The nature of how Antonio leads the line as a physical presence in the middle of the pitch creates space for the players around him and while he isn’t a particularly regular scorer, he typically picks up a reasonable number of goals each year.

 

If the likes of Mohammed Kudus and Said Benrahma can also profit from the Jamaican international’s hard work, like Bowen, there will be few claiming they need a new centre-forward.