Over to you, Tottenham Hotspur. Do you have what it takes to get out of this? West Ham are here for the fight. Are you?
Genuine belief is spreading around the London Stadium that the Great Escape is on. There’s a unity, too, one thought lost for good. Boos and protests have filled this ground for much of the season yet, as the scoreboard ticked towards the final 15 minutes, with the score at 3-0, the home supporters rose to their feet as one: ‘Stand up, if you love West!’
Under Nuno Espirito Santo, they are coming together right when they need it.
West Ham were seven points adrift when they lost here to Nottingham Forest at the start of January. Tottenham sat four places above them with 13 points between them.
Now, for the first time since August 2015, Spurs will end a day inside the bottom three. And how fitting it was that it was a former Arsenal man in Konstantinos Mavropanos who scored twice to put them there.
West Ham will escape it for the first time since March when their point at Man City lifted them to safety, if only for a day. How long will this stay last?
Nuno Espirito Santo (right) has West Ham believing they can avoid Premier League relegation
Anchor Jarrod Bowen (left) was in fine form, picking up two assists at the London Stadium
If the Hammers are to survive, how vindicating it will feel for Nuno to send down either Spurs or Nottingham Forest, two clubs that believed they would be better off without him.
‘Anything can happen,’ declared Nuno in a pre-match video montage that played out over the big screens before kick-off. ‘It’s going to be a fight.’
It sure is, and they showed they are here for the scrap, but it still took a while for his players to roll up their sleeves. There was little of that buzz or frenzy or atmosphere of the end of that remarkable FA Cup tie that played out over three hours here on Sunday when West Ham fought back from two goals down in stoppage time to take Leeds into extra-time.
West Ham were ominously slow and tepid as Wolves threw the first punches. Angel Gomes fizzed an inviting ball in front of goal and only a desperate Kyle Walker-Peters clearance denied Hugo Bueno an early tap-in before namesake Santiago Bueno rasped one over the bar from distance. Yerson Mosquera nodded another chance wide while Adam Armstrong forced a save from Mads Hermansen with a header of his own from a long throw.
Wolves were, for the majority of the first-half at least, the better side. But when you have a player of Jarrod Bowen’s quality in your side, you’re never completely out of the pub brawl even if you’re not the first through the door.
During these recent difficult times, the question of whether Bowen is the kind of Kevin Nolan grab-you-by-the-scruff-of-the-neck captain West Ham need has been raised. It’s perhaps that lack of main character energy that will see him miss out on a place in Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad to wingers who consistently score and set up far fewer goals than he does.
And yet, as he so often does, he quietly goes about being the difference when West Ham need him. It was his link-up with Mateus Fernandes that slipped in Crysencio Summerville for his side’s first real chance only for him to blast his effort over the bar.
Summerville’s return from injury will be crucial for the run-in, having scored seven goals in 11 games before a calf complaint saw him miss the last three winless games, but even he had to shake some rust off.
Former Arsenal man Konstantinos Mavropanos scored twice to officialls send Tottenham into the relegation zone
It’s now over to Tottenham, who are in the bottom three, to decide if they are up for the fight
It was Bowen who fired straight at Jose Sa when the ball fell to him in the box midway through the first half and, again, when he got on to the end of Mavropanos’s header but could only prod a deflected effort at the keeper.
And, so, it was Bowen again, who curled in the quality cross just before half-time to pick out the central defender and open the scoring and the corner at the death for Mavropanos to volley home his second.
How much of an upgrade for Nuno it was having Mavropanos back in the starting line-up in place of Max Kilman, who gave away one penalty against Leeds, should have given away two, and got booed by his own supporters whenever he touched the ball.
The goal brought West Ham to life. Bowen, clearly not done, drove down the wing early in the second-half, cut past Ladislav Krejci on to his left foot and rasped a bending shot against the woodwork, as he did twice against Leeds in the Cup.
Workhorse Pablo nearly made it two before the break after being slipped through on the counter only to be denied by a fine low save before slipping in fellow astute January signing Castellanos for the second. It was Bowen, of course, who played him in for the third just 99 seconds later.
Both of his shots, the second deflected, crawled over the line. When it’s all said and done, will West Ham do the same?
