West Ham continued their excellent form with a comfortable 4-0 win over Gary O’Neil’s Bournemouth on Sunday. David Moyes’ side took the lead in just the fifth minute – their first goal in the opening 15 minutes of a Premier League match this season – and with the game suddenly favouring their counter-attacking approach away from home, the Hammers were quite comfortable thereafter. The Cherries came into the game on a positive run themselves – having beaten Spurs, Leicester, Fulham, and Liverpool in recent matches – but West Ham’s newfound confidence in attack proved too much for O’Neil’s side and the result sees the Hammers move up to 13th, five points behind Chelsea.
Łukasz Fabiański – 8
Bournemouth were largely restricted to shots from distance until late in the match when Dominic Solanke hit the post with an acrobatic effort and Kieffer Moore managed to miss the target after an excellent Marcus Tavernier cross. Still, Fabiański did well to deny Solanke when the striker raced through after beating Nayef Aguerd in the 30th minute and the Polish keeper also produced solid stops from a couple of long-rangers. He managed one excellent punch to stop Moore from nodding home in the 60th minute.
Vladimír Coufal – 9
Coufal is in the middle of his best run of form since the 2020-21 season and the Czech right-back was totally dominant on Sunday against Tavernier. His anticipation is perfect at the moment and he consistently backs up Jarrod Bowen’s pressures by flying out of the backline to intercept, or pressurise, the free pass out wide. He did this throughout the match to great effect and even managed to produce a goal when he raced out to steal from Tavernier before overlapping Bowen to whip in an inch-perfect cross to the back stick for Lucas Paquetá. Rightly replaced by Thilo Kehrer late on having run himself into the ground.
Kurt Zouma – 8
Aside from a cheap turnover midway through the first half, this was near-enough Zouma at his best as the French centre-back dominated in his own penalty area with countless headers, blocks, and clearances. He covered well for Coufal’s aggressive pressures and even showed some impressive composure on the ball to play through pressure himself.
Nayef Aguerd – 5
Aguerd hasn’t quite produced the level expected with any consistency since returning from the ankle injury that kept him out for the first half of this season. The Moroccan was a bit of a mixed bag again in this one with some awfully weak defending to allow Solanke through in the first half and a ridiculous mistake that followed where he seemed to expect Fabiański to come and claim the ball despite it clearly being his responsibility. He improved in the second half.
Aaron Cresswell – 6
How we have missed Cresswell’s delivery from corners… This wasn’t Cresswell’s best showing from a defensive perspective – he was regularly caught out being far too positionally conservative which allowed Bournemouth’s right-sided attackers the time and space to receive, turn, and drive at the defence – but he provided the assist for the first goal and it was his excellent ball in that led to the third too. Much like Aguerd, he was better in the second half and his best moment came from a wonderful underlapping run to support Paquetá before cutting back for Bowen in the 63rd minute.
Jarrod Bowen – 9
He may have slowed down in the second half with tiredness clearly taking hold but – for 45 minutes – Bournemouth simply could not handle Bowen. The winger was exceptional in the first half as he defended brilliantly in tandem with Coufal and provided countless moments of quality in attack. There are too many highlights to name – the first goal came from his hard work down the right with an excellent delivery forcing the corner, he then played a brilliant flicked pass through to Tomáš Souček who set-up Saïd Benrahma for a shooting opportunity that could easily have led to a second, a few minutes later he rotated with Michail Antonio and drew Chris Mepham out to lay the Jamaican clean through on goal, shortly after he did incredibly to cut out Jack Stephens’ ball to Tavernier and immediately drew a pressure-relieving foul from Jefferson Lerma who he rolled at the end of the first half before almost combining with Coufal for a fourth. He should’ve done much better with a 34th minute chance that he created himself with a high turnover but this was a truly outstanding performance with an assist to cap it off at the end.
Tomáš Souček – 8
Souček has stepped up significantly in recent weeks after a terrible run of form concluded with a catastrophic performance against Newcastle. The big man was back to his best at the weekend as he careered around the middle flying into tackles and making key interceptions to stop dangerous attacks. As mentioned above, he even played a positive role in attack with a lovely run and pass to set-up Benrahma and some neat longer passes to speed up play. He made a great run ahead of the front post for the first goal and could’ve nabbed one for himself in the final minute of stoppage time after another wonderful Cresswell corner.
Declan Rice – 9
Sometimes a player is just very clearly on a different level to most of the players on the pitch and this was the case on Sunday as Rice glided through midfield with neat contributory passes in attack and a magnetism to the second ball that made life easy for his teammates. He took his goal perfectly and somehow got better going forwards in the second half as his legs began to betray him following his efforts midweek. He played a central role in the best move of the game that led to Benrahma’s 63rd minute chance and did all the work for Fornals’ goal with an interception and a perfectly chipped pass to play Bowen through. He could even have created another two thanks to some effortless combination play with Maxwel Cornet and a lovely whipped pass out to Fornals that led to the Ivorian’s disallowed fifth. Sensational.
Saïd Benrahma – 8
A strong display from Benrahma who was just as energetic and diligent as Bowen out of possession whilst providing some equally neat touches in attack. His finishing was the major drawback here as he arrived in the perfect spot to convert twice but failed to really work the keeper. He was the quietest of the front four but this was a good showing nonetheless – it’s great to see a stronger defensive performance after recent mistakes too.
Lucas Paquetá – 9
Paquetá has slowly improved in the league since being moved into a deeper position in midfield but this was the first time we really saw him explode into life in a typical Moyes system. The Brazilian was shifted back up onto the frontline and put all of the lessons he’d learned from recent matches together to finally produce a fantastic performance with consistent high impact. The most notable difference was the increased directness to his play in advanced areas and it was great to see him positioning himself off Antonio to pick up knock-downs and leather them out to the right flank for Bowen to attack with support from Coufal. It seems like he has grasped the strengths of the players around him and the kind of service different teammates need; he can drift out to the left and pull off short, tight, combinations with Benrahma whilst providing more direct passes to the right before attacking the box himself. His goal showcased this perfectly as he surged towards the back post when Bowen received and went on to batter Stephens in the air and head home. This was just one highlight in a game full of extraordinary moments and his 59th minute through ball for Antonio definitely deserves a mention.
Michail Antonio – 8
West Ham’s success under Moyes rests extremely heavily on Antonio and his ability to contest long balls, carry upfield, and bring teammates into play. When things slowed down at the end of last season and continued to falter through much of this season, it was understandable to think that a 33 year-old Antonio – ravaged by injuries for years at West Ham – had fallen from the level required to actualise Moyes’ counter-attacking style. Yet somehow, out of nowhere, Antonio has undergone a phoenix-like resurgence in recent weeks and is suddenly producing the kind of high level performances West Ham desperately need to stay in the top flight and compete for silverware in the UEFA Europa Conference League. I don’t think it can be overstated how utterly vital Antonio has been to this recent burst of momentum and – though he could have done so much more with several promising openings on Sunday – the striker was, once again, a key part of everything good about the Hammers’ performance. Whether he was winning free-kicks, competing brilliantly on aerial duels, or snapping in to intercept or block off passes in midfield, Antonio was excellent against Bournemouth. His simple goal, well taken after Cresswell’s perfect corner, was just the icing on-top of another strong display.
Pablo Fornals – 8
Things have to be going well when Pablo Fornals can come off the bench and score a scorpion kick… The Spaniard replaced Benrahma for the last half an hour, scored an excellent goal, and provided some brilliant accelerating passes to launch counters.
Danny Ings – 6
Ings’ hold-up play was much improved here and he combined well in some promising attacks.
Maxwel Cornet, Flynn Downes, Thilo Kehrer – N/A
