Former West Ham United striker Carlton Cole is right, statistically speaking at least, in his theory about one standout member of Graham Potter’s Premier League roster.
Since the beginning of the 2021/22 season, Mo Salah has far and away the most goals to his name across England’s top flight. The evergreen Liverpool talisman has a staggering 110.
That Erling Haaland is Salah’s closest challenger, despite featuring in only three of those five seasons, speaks volumes about his remarkable productivity in the sky blue of Manchester City. Ollie Watkins has overtaken both Heung-Min Son and Harry Kane into third, with Phil Foden, Alexander Isak, Bruno Fernandes and Chris Wood – hitting 20 for the first time at Nottingham Forest – making up numbers six through nine.
Coming in at tenth, meanwhile, is not Arsenal winger Bukayo Saka but West Ham United forward Jarrod Bowen.
Reaching double figures in the Premier League for the third time in four full seasons, Bowen is a leading candidate to reclaim his Hammer of the Year gong for a reason.
The West Ham skipper is glowing in his praise for Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Mohammed Kudus – two other candidates, albeit the former far more deserving than the latter – but, once again, Bowen has been the primary difference-maker in a team performing below pre-season expectations.
Photo by Vince Mignott/MB Media/Getty Images
Photo by Vince Mignott/MB Media/Getty Images
Carlton Cole says West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen is ‘beating’ Bukayo Saka
The statistics show meanwhile that Carlton Cole is spot on when he says Bowen has more Premier League goals to his name than a forward most neutrals would place behind Salah when ranking the division’s best right-sided attackers.
“I think I compared him a long time ago to Saka. Numbers-wise, he was flying,” says Cole, the former striker who returned to West Ham to work as the club’s loan manager.
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“I think if you put his numbers together, how many goals he scored in a certain amount of time, I think he is beating Saka.”
Bowen has 54 goals since the start of 2021/22, compared to Saka’s 53.
Of course, context is required here. Bowen has spent much of the last two years playing up front. Yet, while Saka has the advantage of representing an Arsenal side competing for the title, Bowen regularly reaches double figures for a West Ham team often flitting from the lower-top-half to the bottom end of the table.
Only two of his goals have been penalties as well, compared to Saka’s eleven.
In short, where would The Hammers be without him?
“The whole team has dropped off [this season, but] he has played different positions, he comes up with goals. Important goals at that,” adds Cole, scorer of over a half-century of Premier League strikes in West Ham colours between 2006 and 2015.
“He keeps the team afloat when they are going through a bad time. That is why he is the captain.”
Bowen is a Champions League level player as Jean-Clair Todibo lauds Hammers skipper
Adding together goals and assists, Bowen ranks higher than the likes of Foden, Bryan Mbeumo and Marcus Rashford since the summer of 2021.
Furthermore, only four players – Salah, Fernandes and Son – have hit the woodwork more times than Bowen’s fourteen.
West Ham teammate Jean-Clair Todibo feels Bowen belongs amongst the Premier League’s elite these days. It’s fair to say he passes the eye-test, while the statistics serve to further back up such claims.
Darren Bent, the ex-England hitman, goes one step further. Bowen is quite simply a Champions League level player. Fortunately, his loyalty to West Ham remains undiminished.
“I always say Jarrod is a top-class player, and he has nothing to prove. He is one of the best in the league,” Todibo argues. “He can do everything. He can play up front or out wide, and he is an international player for England as well.
“When you reach that level, I don’t think there can be any doubt about a player’s quality.”