West Ham ‘will be feared’ in Europa League after perfect start to group, says Jarrod Bowen

Jarrod Bowen believes teams will fear West Ham in the Europa League after their perfect start in the competition.

The Hammers made it three wins from three on Thursday night as Bowen’s fine solo goal sealed all three points against Genk after Craig Dawson and Issa Diop had struck from set-pieces.

West Ham moved six points clear at the top of Group H with three games to play and look comfortable at this new level so far.

After a slow showing in the first half, Dawson diverted Aaron Cresswell’s corner in with his shoulder in injury time before the break, giving the Hammers something to build on.

West Ham were three ahead before the hour mark, Cresswell providing the delivery again for Diop to head in off the bar, before Bowen’s driving run and powerful finish.

West Ham are yet to concede a goal in Europe so far — and the last side to begin a Europa League campaign with three straight wins was Sevilla two seasons ago, with the Spanish side going on to win the trophy.

West Ham’s focus remains on finishing top in their group to avoid a play-off against a side dropping down from the Champions League to reach the last 16, but Bowen feels the Hammers are a side to look out for.

“The main thing is topping the group,” he said.

“The home games are vitally important. We want to win away, too. If we can stay strong, keep the confidence, then I think teams will be fearing us. We could be the team to look out for. We’re only a few games away from a big cup run.

“We beat Everton at the weekend and we have built on that again. We’ll keep pushing. We’re winning games, so that makes the players keep wanting to put the performances in.

“It’s unreal. In every competition, if the team changes, everyone knows what the standard is and what the manager expects. You can see in the performance tonight it was a convincing 3-0 victory but we have a big squad and a whole season ahead. Everyone is ready to play their part. You can see the players who don’t play as much come in like tonight and do really well.”

Team-mate Tomas Soucek added: “I hope that we can go as far as possible. In every competition that I start, I want to finish first, also in the Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup. I want to do the maximum in every competition. The Europa League is big for us because West Ham haven’t played here for a long time, we have the chance to do it and we want to be successful.”

David Moyes is staying grounded and insists seeing West Ham in the hat for the knockout stages is the only aim at the moment, but even the Scot might not have expected that his side would have been comfortable enough to be handing out debuts just three games into their Euro campaign.

Moyes sent on highly-rated attacking midfielder Daniel Chesters for his first senior outing in the closing stages last night.

“I’m not going to take anything for granted,” said Moyes. “The games have been close, even though we’ve been the better team in all three of them.”

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