By Simon Leyland

There has been fighting talk coming out of Poirot Land ahead of our first leg tie against Koninklijke Atletiek Associatie Gent ,or just Gent.

In an interview with the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, their feisty forward Hugo Cuypers has been talking about his side’s European chances against the Hammers next month.

On being asked about his team’s games against the Irons and making it through to the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League.

It seems words rather than actions MAY be the case here although that seems to be the way with footballers over all eras.

The Hammers have been relatively comfortable draw given the other possibilities and appear to be in no mood to do anything other that enter their second semi final in successive years.

No suggestion it will be anything other than a tough match and here’s what the striker has to say:

“We want to try to get a good starting position and then we go to London. Hopefully we can go one round further. They are now in a relegation battle.

Maybe that can play to our advantage, but on the other hand they have already come this far and then you want to get everything out of it.

They also don’t play European football every year as we do, so they certainly won’t underestimate it. We watched the draw with part of the group. Everyone was very happy.”

We shall see Hugo, we shall see…!