West Ham 2-1 Wolves: Jarrod Bowen nets stunning winner to pile pressure on Gary O’Neil as Hammers pay tribute to Michail Antonio on an emotional night

Tomas Soucek held up nine fingers and Jarrod Bowen held up the shirt.

Two tributes to team-mate Michail Antonio, who was lucky to still be in hospital after his horrific car crash last weekend, following two huge goals on an emotional night for West Ham.

How big could those moments be for West Ham’s season, how big will they be for Julen Lopetegui and how devastating will they likely be for Gary O’Neil’s future.

It was Soucek who broke the deadlock before the hour mark, raising his arms in the air after his header and raising nine fingers in honor of West Ham’s number nine Antonio.

And when Bowen clinched the win 18 minutes from time, he hoisted Antonio’s shirt to the crowd and the supporters chanted his name.

For all the ramifications this result may still have, whatever impact it will have on those sitting in the dugouts, this was a night of the will-he-go, won’t-he-go of the managerial merry-go-round was placed in sharp perspective.

Much of the build-up was about these two under-pressure coaches and who the ax would fall on first after this latest edition of ‘El Sackico’. Julen Lopetegui? Gary O’Neil? Both?

Lopetegui was given a surprise reprieve after two days of talks over his future by the West Ham board, while Gary O’Neil’s position at Wolves hung by the thinnest of threads. For both, even talk of getting one extra game to save their jobs felt a lot more like two clubs kicking the old can down the road until they can field a suitable alternative.

And then, on Saturday afternoon, the lights and noise of the circus that now surrounds football faded into the background as the news and horrific images came through that Michail Antonio had crashed his Ferrari.

Antonio suffered serious injuries and underwent surgery for a broken leg. It is expected that it will be weeks before he can leave the hospital and God knows how long it will be before he can kick a football again, if he ever does.

But the most important thing is that he is still there, as his captain Jarrod Bowen said before kick-off, to tell the story.

And so his teammates emerged for their warm-up, wearing West Ham shirts with ‘Antonio 9’ on the back. In his honor, they walked out wearing zip-up tops.

The stadium announcer bellowed his name over and over as the players huddled for their final words, and as the London Stadium heeded their cue, one can only imagine the final inspiring words about their teammate Bowen must have used in the middle of it. .

After nine minutes the home fans rose to their feet with a one-minute round of applause for their number 9, as more chants of ‘Antonio’ ​​echoed around the London Stadium.

However, none of this seemed to excite the players in the early stages. This was not a West Ham side that flew out of the traps with fire in their bellies. They were as flat and subdued as they have been here so often lately. Nothing really seemed to have changed.

Carlos Soler slipped to intercept a pass and needed Konstantinos Mavropanos to save him. Lukasz Fabianski saved a few snaps of Joao Gomes and Matheus Cunha.

In any case, Lopetegui’s team grew along with the match. Bowen forced a smart stop from Sam Johnstone after a one-two with Tomas Soucek. A lovely pass over the top from Crysencio Summerville found Soler, but his effort was thwarted by an excellent block from Rayan Ait-Nouri.

Mohammed Kudus’ curling effort forced Johnstone to parry the ball into danger, but Soucek was a split second too late. Mavropanos spooned one over from eight meters after Max Kilman’s knockdown from a corner. Summerville headed wide of the back post.

So towards the end of the first half, as a bit of boos greeted the referee’s whistle, there was an all-too-familiar echo of West Ham’s defeat to Leicester, where they had 20 shots before half-time and no goals before that. This time only the 12, but again, to no avail.

What Lopetegui wouldn’t give for a clinical striker.

Thank goodness he has a big threat in midfield in Soucek. Just ten minutes into the second half, Bowen’s corner found the Czech international unmarked beyond the back post and his header went over everyone and settled into the far corner.

Up went the arms, up went the nine fingers and up went the tribute to Antonio in his hospital bed and up, perhaps, O’Neil’s position in smoke.

When Kudus shot home a few minutes later after a cross from Bowen, but scored too early, the goal was disallowed after a far too lengthy VAR check.

Wolves and O’Neil were convinced, or at least desperate, to score a penalty when Guedes went down under a challenge from Emerson, only for the referee and VAR to wave away the protests. Later they had another soft call for a tackle on Bellegarde, dismissed.

Not that they had to wait too long for their reprieve. Ait-Nouri’s cross into the penalty area allowed Matt Doherty to get ahead of Summerville to level.

With so much at stake, it felt like every goal carried the weight of the world.

Imagine the relief when Bowen pushed his way through the crowd of Wolves bodies and slotted the winner into the bottom corner, running towards the fans and hoisting Antonio’s shirt.

On nights like these it’s always tempting to say football doesn’t matter. But of course it does matter. It is important for those seeking comfort and community and escape on these cold Monday evenings.

It was so important that after the final whistle the players got into a fight with each other and had to be separated. A manager will probably lose his job because of this and that matters. It’s just, after everything that’s happened, this was a night that reminded us that sometimes other things are more important.