A fabulous atmosphere at the London Stadium saw the Irons burst from the traps and had the best of the earlier exchanges.
Joy of joys, 1-0 as big Mikey threw himself towards a Jarrod Antonio cross and “exoceted” a header in the net. The London Stadium erupted in a wall of noise.
A few minutes later saw Kudus, out on the left, who curled a terrific cross to the back post and Bowen has an aeon to wait under underneath it, opting for a sidefooter rather than laces and making decent connection too! But scrambling down by his near post, Kovar does just enough to block it to safety.
Away boss Xabi Alonso clearly felt he needed to make a change to snuff out West Ham’s dominance, so he turned to his substitutes’ bench.
The booked defender Odilon Kossounou was replaced by Edmond Tapsoba.
It’suddenly went bonkers on the touchline when Billy McKinley, a member of West Han’s backroom was sent off; where’s Knollsy when you need him eh? and then a phalanx of players jostling, with Antonio and Tah at their centre. Feisty, very feisty !
As we went in for half time, the dream was still alive !
The second half saw Alonso makes two changes, Frimpong and Boniface – the first choice right-wing-back and striker – replacing Tella and Shick.
Then, Bowen was in! He had time too, but then he panicked, swishing a shot so wide of the far post it didn’t go behind, and when the ball cames back, he couldn’t find a way of getting a proper head on it at the far post. Should have been 2-0 !
Sadly with a couple of minutes to go, Frimpong settled the tie and preserved their unbeaten run, left in space down the left side of the box and allowed time thereafter, he nudges inside, creating a shooting angle, fires into Cresswell’s back, and the deflection beats Fabianski!
That’s it – it ended 1-1 on the night, and 3-1 to Bayer Leverkusen on aggregate.
You really can’t fault West Ham’s effort out there tonight. To a man, they were superb, and ultimately exit the competition to a team who have just been crowned German champions.
West ham were great tonight , but the ref was a complete ****er .
I’ve seen some dross refs in my time but that tosser took the biscuit. He ruined the game and he through he’s incompetence ruined west ham’s chances.
I hope he reads our reactions , and I for one will state ,he was ****e , rubbish and overwhelmed by the occasion and should leave the ref proffession and go off a d fade away , prat.
So bad you have to wonder if he cheated.
Quite plainly a game of 2 benches. 1 very good and one well….. very poor. And that’s all on Moyes 100%.
Never mind we’ll done hard luck we pushed them. We lost because Moyes has been flogging the same players to death since before Xmas.because he prefers a small squad!!! His words. They match his small brain. We had them by the short and curlies at HT. Alonso made changes, jurassic dave couldn’t
2 January windows running he’s dithered and noused it up. Just get out. ASAP
Could agree with you more John. The efforts of the players were again let down by their manager.
Why are you blaming the manager for the January window.How do you know it was down to him.Surely the buck stops with Mr Sullivan.
Not if Moyes currently has ultimate say on signings. One reason they’ve made changes to his T&C’s which Moyes is reluctant to sign. Even Sully can see the lack of signings has cost us on a few occasions. Not that Sully has a great success rate with signings…