Hammer Benny counting on the fans
Said Benrahma may be battling to get a regular first team spot these days but he has little doubt West Ham will take their revenge over Olympiacos at the London Stadium tomorrow evening regardless., And Hammer Benny is counting on the fans to make it happen!
West Ham are of course going to need to with joint top spot holders Freiburg looking likely winners of Group A bottom club Backus Topoloa. It’s another of those Hammers must wingames.
Like the rest of the squad, the midfielder was unhappy with the performance in Greece and is looking for a huge improvement at the London Stadium where we are set to be backed by a crowd possibly close to 60,000. While West Ham were on the wrong end of a 2-1 score-line at the Georgios Karaiskakis Stadium, Benrahma says the entire squad know what they can do in the big games against continental opposition. He will of course have to wait and see but the Algerian accepts the performance away to Olympiacos was not good enough, he is eager to help the team put that right on Thursday.
Commenting to www.whufc.com he said: “That last game, to be honest, we did not play as well as we should. It was not good for us. We didn’t play our usual football and we can do better. We need to forget that away game and focus on this game. We know sometimes that games are hard, and our performance as a group in the away game against Olympiacos was not good for us, but we have faith in our abilities and can be confident about the home game.”
He and his teammates have been putting in the hard work on the training pitches at Rush Green, and the 28-year-old is keen for the team to get things right at London Stadium against their Greek opposition.
He added: “I think we are ready for Thursday. We need to prove that the away game against Olympiacos was a one-off, a mistake. We need to keep doing what we’ve been doing in Europe over the last two or three seasons and come back stronger. We need to win this game, I think, and we are confident that we can do that. We need to just bring some positivity and some more energy, and I think a lot of that will come from us a group and some of that will also come from playing at London Stadium in front of our fans. We can look at the game in Greece and say that it was not us at our best, and now we can go about putting that right.”
He added: “The fans will for sure be our twelfth man. When you come into London Stadium, you see how big it is and how passionate our fans are. For an away side, that can be a lot to take in. I can remember two years ago in the round of 16 match against Sevilla. The noise that day was amazing. And it has been for every European night we’ve played. When those fans are giving us their support and positivity, it pushes us to be even better and gives us more energy. They will help give us the power we need in this game.”