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 raised nine fingers and then Jarrod Bowen held up the shirt.

Two tributes to their team-mate Michail Antonio, lucky to be alive and watching the game from his hospital bed after his horrific car crash over the weekend, after two huge goals on one emotional night for West Ham.

How big could those moments be for West Ham’s season, how influential for Julen Lopetegui and how damning for the future of Gary O’Neil.

It was Soucek first, breaking the deadlock before the hour, who lifted his arms into the air after his header and raised nine fingers in honour of Antonio, West Ham’s No 9.

And when Bowen won it 18 minutes from time, he hoist Antonio’s shirt to the crowd and the supporters sung his name.

For all the ramifications this result may still hold, whatever impact it is expected to have on those in the dugouts, this was a night where the will-he-go, won’t-he-go of the managerial merry-go round was thrust into stark perspective.

So much of the build-up had been about these two under-pressure coaches and on to whom the axe would fall first following this latest edition of ‘El Sackico’. Julen Lopetegui? Gary O’Neil? Both?

Lopetegui was given a surprise reprieve following two days of talks over his future by the West Ham board who have been putting our feelers for a replacement, while O’Neil’s position at Wolves hung by the thinnest of threads – it remains to been whether this result will make it snap.

For both, even the talk of them having one extra game to save their jobs felt much more like two clubs kicking the old tin can down the stretch until they have lined up a suitable alternative.

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

Antonio suffered extensive injuries and has undergone surgery on a broken leg. It’s expected to be weeks until he’s able to leave hospital and goodness knows how long until he kicks a football again, if he ever does.

But the main thing is he is still here. He was well enough to FaceTime his team-mates before kick-off and share a joke before he watched the game from his hospital bed.

And so his team-mates emerged for their warm-ups wearing West Ham shirts with ‘Antonio 9’ on the back. They walked out with zip-up tops in his honour.

The stadium announcer roared his name over and over as the players huddled for their final words and, as the London Stadium took their cue, you can only imagine what final words of inspiration about their team-mate Bowen will have used at the middle of it.

On nine minutes, the home fans rose as one in a minute’s applause for their No 9 as more chants of ‘Antonio’ echoed around the London Stadium.

None of it, though, seemed to rouse those players in the early stages. This was not a West Ham side flying out of the traps with fire in their belly. They were as flat and subdued as they so often have been here in recent times. Nothing, really, appeared to have changed.

Carlos Soler slipped trying to intercept a pass and needed Konstantinos Mavropanos to bail him out. Lukasz Fabianski saved a couple of snapshots from Joao Gomes and Matheus Cunha.

Lopetegui’s side did, at least, grow into the contest. 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 attempt was thwarted by an excellent block from Rayan Ait-Nouri.

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

They were still all half-chances, though, three-quarters at best. Not enough quality from either side, with goalmouth scrambles at both ends, to carve out anything crystal clear.

It told you everything about the standard of the game that the first West Ham fans shuffling down the concourse for a half-time pie were clocked at 31 minutes.

So, by the end of the first half, as a smattering of boos greeted the referee’s whistle, there was an all-too familar echo to West Ham’s defeat at Leicester where they had 20 shots before the break and no goals to show for it. Just the 12 this time but, again, to no avail.

What Lopetegui wouldn’t give for a clinical striker.

Thank goodness, then, he has a big midfield threat in Soucek. Just 10 minutes into the second half, Bowen’s corner found the Czech Republic international unmarked beyond the back post and his header looped over everyone and nestled 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, went O’Neil’s position in smoke.

When Kudus slotted home from Bowen’s cross a few minutes later but made his run too soon and, following a far-too-lengthy VAR check, the goal was ruled out.

Wolves and O’Neil were convinced, or at least were desperate, for a penalty when Guedes went down under a challenge from Emerson only for the referee and VAR to wave away the protests. They later had another soft appeal for a tackle on Bellegarde turned down. O’Neil felt both should have been given.

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

When so much is on the line, every goal felt like it bore the weight of the world.

Imagine the relief, then, when Bowen wriggled his way through the crowd of Wolves bodies and rifled the winner into the bottom corner, ran to the fans and hoisted Antonio’s shirt aloft.

It’s always tempting on nights like this to say that football doesn’t matter. But, of course, it does matter. It matters to those who take comfort and community and escape on these cold Monday nights. It mattered enough for Mario Lemina to lose his rag after the game after a scuffle with Bowen and square up to his own team-mates and coaches.

A manager is likely to lose his job because of it and that matters, too. It’s just, after everything that’s happened, this was a night that reminded us all that sometimes other things matter more.