Jarrod Bowen took a balanced view of West Ham United’s 0-0 draw at Southampton on Saturday and felt sharing the spoils was probably the fairest outcome in the end.
West Ham dominated possession – seeing 58 per cent of the ball at St Mary’s – but were not at their sharpest in the final third, while Southampton ended the contest strongly with substitute Armando Broja hitting the post and having a header cleared off the line by Declan Rice.
So while Bowen was disappointed that his team were unable to turn their possession into goals, he said they will take the point having not been at their best.
“It could have been three points, but then they could have had a couple of goals at the end when they hit the post, and then Dec clears one off the line,” Bowen said.
“So, it’s one of those afternoons where we had a lot of the ball, but ultimately in the final third – where we’ve been really good recently – we were a bit off today.
“It’s disappointing, but when you’re not fully at it, keeping a clean sheet and getting a point away from home has to be looked at as a positive.
“It’s another point in hopefully another successful season.”
Bowen went as close as anybody in the visiting team to turning that single point into three, forcing Saints keeper Alex McCarthy into a fine reflex save with his left-footed volley midway through the second half.
The 24-year-old forward admitted that he thought he’d be notching his first goal of the season when the ball left his foot.
He continued: “I thought it was in. It was one of those where it was up in the air and it took an age to come down and I thought Micky was going to try and get it, but he saw it was coming down on my left foot and I just had to try and get a solid enough contact on it.
“I thought I did and it was going to go in the roof of the net, but the keeper saved it.”
Nikola Vlašić came on for his debut in the second half, and with Kurt Zouma and Alex Král among the substitutes too, Bowen is excited to see the squad building ahead of the European kick-off at Dinamo Zagreb this coming Thursday.
“It’s building on what we achieved last season,” he said. “We’ve got the Europa League this season as well, and with the players we’ve signed and the stature they’ve got, they’re only going to help improve the team.
“That’s what we want, we want competition for places, we want as many players as fit as we can because we’ve got a lot of games this season, and we want to make it a special one."
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