West Ham could be relegated on Tuesday night if Tottenham beat Chelsea, and Jarrod Bowen will be among the fans watching every minute of it. A draw for Tottenham would all but confirm West Ham's fate before the final day on Sunday.
Bowen said the club's worries were starting to creep in last season, after West Ham finished 15th, and he described this campaign as a catalogue of errors. He said the problems did not begin this year, but stretched back to last term under Graham Potter and beyond that to a run of change that has left the side fighting for its place in the division.
The forward pointed to the distance between West Ham's best and worst in the past three seasons. Three years this summer since the club won a European trophy, Bowen said even that year ended with a 14th-place finish, before an improvement that was followed by 15th last season. He said the team had thought it would be better this time, but the results have not matched that expectation.
Bowen has carried much of the attacking load anyway, scoring eight league goals and adding 10 assists in 37 appearances this season. He said he has not played to the standards he knows he can reach and accepted that responsibility without qualification. “Ultimately it's us. It's all on us. We're the ones that play,” he said.
That admission lands harder because West Ham's slide has not been caused by one bad month. Bowen said managerial changes and new players arriving have added to the instability, even as the club tried to reset after Julen Lopetegui's departure and Potter's brief spell in charge. The wider picture is one of drift rather than a single collapse.
For West Ham, Tuesday night now matters more than any match it has played in months. Bowen said he will watch Tottenham against Chelsea at 8.15pm because there is no way to avoid it, and no sense pretending otherwise. “You have to watch the game. You can't avoid it. You can't try and hide away from it,” he said.
Even if West Ham survive the next 24 hours, the season will not end the uncertainty. Bowen said he will not decide his future until the campaign is over, leaving open the possibility that the club's most important player may also be facing his own decision once the survival picture is clear.
