Jarrod Bowen praised a shift in West Ham’s mindset as they won at Arsenal in the Premier League for the first time since 2015.
The Hammers secured a 2-0 victory at the Emirates Stadium to go four points behind the top four and prevent their hosts moving back to the top of the table.
Bowen capitalised on rocky Arsenal defending to cross for Tomas Soucek to open the scoring, the goal standing after a lengthy VAR check could not conclude if the ball had gone out of play before the England international’s centre.
Former Arsenal defender Konstantinos Mavropanos then headed in his first West Ham goal to seal the three points – with David Moyes’ side now having beaten Tottenham, Manchester United and Arsenal this month.
While those victories have been tinged with setbacks – a 5-0 league thrashing at Fulham and a meek Carabao Cup exit at Liverpool – Bowen feels building on Saturday’s win over United with another three points against a title challenger shows progress.
“It’s a massive win,” Bowen told the club’s official website.
“We knew it was going to be difficult as these are top side, but we managed to build on what we did against Manchester United.
“I think, for us, we haven’t been consistent enough. We might have won one game and then the Fulham game springs to mind when we conceded five, and if we want to be spoken about to go to the top six and finishing higher in the division then we need to be consistent.
“Like I say, this was a hard game, but I said after the Man United game that we needed to come here with a mindset to take points and we’ve done that.
“It’s those consistency levels…We play Brighton in a few days (Tuesday) and we have to go there and win that as well.”
Things could have been even better for West Ham had Said Benrahma’s stoppage-time penalty not been saved by David Raya – but for Arsenal it was a night to forget.
Mikel Arteta’s men had 30 attempts on goal but could not trouble the scorers as they failed to produce the win required to usurp Liverpool at the summit.
“I think we created more than enough to score goals to win the game,” said captain Martin Odegaard.
“It was the little details and the little last pass or the finish that was missing. We have to learn from it and make sure we get sharper and better in front of the goals.
“The goals we conceded were too easy, so definitely in front of the goals, inside the boxes, that’s where the games are decided. We weren’t good enough.”
