David Moyes has apologised following his sending off during tonight’s Europa League semi-final second leg clash between Eintracht Frankfurt and West Ham.
The Hammers boss was shown a straight red card after a furious touchline outburst during the closing stages of the game, with West Ham chasing a 3-1 aggregate deficit with 10 men after Aaron Cresswell ’s costly sending off after 20 minutes and Rafael Santos Borre’s goal shortly afterwards.
Moyes was clearly left aggrieved when he asked the Frankfurt coaches to retrieve the ball after it had gone out of play for a throw-in, with a ball boy dropping it at his feet in an apparent attempt to waste time. The Scot was visibly frustrated and volleyed the ball back at the boy before being shown a straight red to send him down the tunnel.
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“I have to apologise for kicking the ball at the ball boy,” Moyes said afterwards. “He left it short, it was nicely on the volley for me, but I apologise for it. I didn’t hit him, I think I just bent it past him. He threw it very short when he could’ve thrown me the ball, he chose to leave it short but as I said, I apologise for that but it was a big game we were trying to win tonight.”
West Ham tried their best in Frankfurt but were just unable to find any response to going a man and a goal behind. They had sacrificed Manuel Lanzini for Ben Johnson after losing Cresswell and paid that price in the second half when they lacked a player who could open up the space in the final third.
Michail Antonio fed off of half-chances for the majority of the game, while the Hammers’ best chance came when Kurt Zouma got on the end of a Jarrod Bowen free-kick but he was unable to get it over the line from close range.
“I thought we tried,” added Moyes. “We created chances and actually certainly had better chances than Frankfurt before getting the man sent off. Look, we congratulate Frankfurt, they go through and we don’t, so we give them our best wishes in the final.”
When asked if he felt pride for West Ham’s European journey, Moyes added: “I don’t feel any of that at the moment, I just feel disappointed because I thought this was a real chance. I think we have probably played better teams than Frankfurt, but tonight and probably if we are being honest, we lost the game in the first 30 seconds of the game at the London Stadium, really from that moment we have been chasing the game ever since.”
