Soccer Football - Premier League - West Ham United v Wolverhampton Wanderers - London Stadium, London, Britain - December 17, 2023 West Ham United's Mohammed Kudus scores their first goal Action Images via Reuters/Andrew Boyers
LONDON (Reuters) - Mohammed Kudus scored twice and Jarrod Bowen was on target again as West Ham beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-0 at home in the Premier League on Sunday.
The win takes West Ham up to seventh in the table on 27 points, ahead of Manchester United on goal difference. United play away at Liverpool later on Sunday. Wolves remain in 13th on 19 points.
The Hammers, who were thumped 5-0 at Fulham last weekend, also leapfrogged Brighton & Hove Albion, who lost 2-0 at Arsenal. West Ham had failed to keep a clean sheet in their previous nine league games.
"We took a good look at ourselves. Yes, we beat Tottenham Hotspur on the Thursday night but then we turned up at Fulham and got done by five," Bowen said.
"This week, we beat Freiburg and we had to apply ourselves in a certain way on Thursday, and I think we did that today," he added. Bowen has now found the net 10 times in the league this season, making him his side's leading scorer.
West Ham made the breakthrough in the 22nd minute with a counter-attack from a Wolves corner, with Lucas Paqueta playing a pass from his own half into the path of Kudus on the right who made his way infield and fired home from outside the area.
The visitors' best chance in the opening half came in the 28th minute when Matheus Cunha forced Lukasz Fabianski into a diving save with a shot from the edge of the area.
Four minutes later Paqueta again picked out Kudus with pin-point precision, and the Ghanaian took the ball into the box before sliding his shot past the keeper and into the far corner.
The brace takes Kudus to five league goals this season, and the Ghanaian also scored on Thursday in the Europa League as the Hammers topped their group with a 2-0 win over SC Freiburg.
West Ham almost made it 3-0 just before the break, when Bowen fired a shot which keeper Dan Bentley could only stand and watch as it crashed off the bottom of the post and back out across the goal to safety.
Wolves thought they had pulled a goal back in the 58th minute but Pablo Sarabia was just offside when tapping in Nelson Semedo's pass across the goal.
But the home side wrapped up the win in the 74th minute when Bowen played a one-two with Paqueta before taking the ball down the right and, despite being forced wide by Craig Dawson, got his shot across goal and in past the keeper.
"We scored three really good goals. It was an exciting game to play in and be a part of. Three points and three goals makes a really good win for us," said Bowen.
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes; editing by Clare Fallon and Hugh Lawson)
