Jarrod Bowen’s season-opening goal at AFC Bournemouth on Saturday came tinged with a touch of disappointment after West Ham United were pegged back en route to a 1-1 draw at Vitality Stadium.
Bowen seemingly had the Irons en route to all three points with his fine strike on 51 minutes, finding the top left-hand corner of Neto’s net from 20 yards out.
Sixty-seven days on from his famous matchwinner in Prague, Bowen had his eyes on another decisive moment, only for Dominic Solanke to grab an equaliser eight minutes from time.
It meant the points were shared on the south coast and Bowen left the ground feeling that his team could have had more.
Ultimately in the end we invited the pressure a little too much and as players on the pitch we had to control the game when we’re 1-0 up, to take the ball and kill the game off.
Yes, it’s disappointing because of course you want to hold onto the lead in those last ten, 15 minutes, but I think we could have done more to manage the game and not invite that pressure.
We wanted three points and we’re disappointed with a point, but we’ll take it. There’s a lot to work on, a lot to improve and we have our first home game next week which we’ll be really excited for.
We knew there would be a new style from Bournemouth as they’ve got a new manager. They would try to dominate the ball and put us under pressure.
We tried to do the same and pick our moments to press at the right times and turn the ball over. On the turnover we’ve been a really good counter-attack team and we don’t want to lose that.
It probably goes back to my point of managing the game. When you turn it over it’s about keeping the ball for the first couple of passes.
You don’t have to score in three seconds, you can keep the ball and work your way. I think we saw a bit of that today – we had a few chances, Tomáš hit the post, Lucas hit the post, Ingsy had a couple and I had a couple. We had a few chances to put the game to bed, and with the way we want to be this year we want to come here and win these games.
You always want to get off the mark as quickly as possible.
That’s been my aim through pre-season, you build the confidence in pre-season and come the first game I wanted to score.
I probably didn’t expect a strike like that! I’m more disappointed with my strike in the first half which went wide, but when I got the second one I hit the ball properly and watched it go in the back of the net.
Since we came back from the World Cup it all started to click together.
You saw Lucas at the back end of last season really starting to mark his ground in this team and show his quality.
It takes time, coming into the Premier League is the hardest league in the world. It’s the most competitive.
From the back end of last season, to the final and coming in today, I think you can see we’re getting a real understanding with each other and we want to build on that going forward.
It went a bit basketball-y at the end. It was end-to-end and these pitches aren’t small!
It’s difficult, but as players we’re in a privileged position. We understand that and know nothing is easy in this life, so that’s why you want to push your teammates to keep running for you.
And every single person will run for everyone. That’s the main really good thing about this group and everyone wants to play for this football club.
It’s a real family structure and you take pride in the shirt. The fans love you for that.
We’ve got a really good group and it’s starting to come together.
