It would have been a painful birthday for Julen Lopetegui in more ways than one had Jarrod Bowen not scored a late Carabao Cup second-round winner against AFC Bournemouth!
The captain revealed that the squad had given Lopetegui a taste of his own medicine during their morning tactical walkthrough, making the West Ham United Head Coach run through a Birthday Tunnel where he received a few lighthearted slaps from his players!
A few hours later, any pain turned to gain as Bowen’s 88th-minute winner knocked the Cherries out and instead left Lopetegui to enjoy the proverbial cake of a third-round tie at Liverpool.
There was controversy about the captain’s second goal in successive games, as Bournemouth claimed he had diverted Mohammed Kudus’s shot past Neto with his arm, but the smiling skipper was giving nothing away when he spoke to West Ham TV.
Instead, he was eager to concentrate on back-to-back goals in wins following Saturday’s Premier League success at Crystal Palace, and look ahead to this weekend’s visit of Manchester City to London Stadium.
With time running out and a cup game in the balance, Jarrod Bowen strikes again!
“It was a bit different to the one that I've had before [against Fiorentina in Prague to win the UEFA Europa Conference League in 2023], but I was probably more disappointed that when I took it around the defender, the other defender was there covering, so it would have been lovely, little goal to finish that one off. But then as soon as Mo got it, I was just more waiting for a rebound, to be honest, or waiting for anything that might drop down and luckily for me, it hit me and went in the back of the net. It was a really, really important time to score a goal and we go into the next round.
So we're through to next round, and that's two wins in a row and two clean sheets in a row, which builds confidence?
“Yeah, we spoke before and I said that we need to go to Palace and win and we need to come here and win because when you’ve got three games in the week, it's important to have that confidence and that momentum of winning games. We didn't play our best football tonight, but we've won the game I think that's really important when you don't play as well as you like, you make sure you don't lose the game. We've done that tonight. We had a really good result against Palace on the weekend, and we’re going into City on the weekend, which we know is going to be difficult, but we know what we have. We're at home, we have our place that will be bouncing. We're in a real good moment, so it's all set up for a really good time on Saturday.”
A few boys got their first starts tonight, and a few boys were playing at home for the first time, and they put in some really important performances?
“They were important minutes for the players. I haven't had many minutes and for the new guys that have come in to experience the stadium tonight, the atmosphere is always top and they got to experience it from the start. It was really important for them. There were some good performances and we're into the next round. We spoke about wanting to win a competition and tonight was the start of that.”
It was the Head Coach’s birthday today. He handed out some Spanish cheesecake to the staff at Rush Green on Tuesday, but not the players, and I understand you gave him your own celebration at training before the game today?!
“[When players return to pre-season or have a birthday] he always does a corridor where you line up in two lines, and the player runs through and you just smack them. It gets quite aggressive sometimes! It was his birthday today so as captain, I said that we've got to do it. I didn't know how it was going to go down, but it went down well! He was game for it and we did it this (Wednesday) morning, so it was nice. He's been a player, so he knows what it's like to keep that spirit high. Tonight with a win as well on his birthday, he’s really happy, but he hasn’t shared any cheesecake yet!”
