Zouma’s inclusion
When Kurt Zouma ’s name was revealed to be in the starting XI for West Ham on Thursday night, a wry smile of ‘mission accomplished’ might have passed David Moyes’ lips for a brief second.
The centre-back, a £30million signing from Chelsea last summer, had successfully been smuggled through the week. Hidden away from reporters at West Ham’s open training session on Wednesday morning and seemingly still unavailable due to injury up until the moment the team sheets were passed around the London Stadium.
In the build-up to the game, Moyes had been coy on the Frenchman’s return from an ankle injury that saw him miss the previous two Premier League matches against Burnley and Chelsea. He spoke of the risk it would be to field any player coming back from a knock, though it’s precisely what he decided to do against Frankfurt, surprising not only the West Ham fans but likely Frankfurt boss Oliver Glasner too.
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Craig Dawson had previously manned the fort alone as the club’s only fit senior centre-back, with Ben Johnson and Aaron Cresswell placed into an unfamiliar back three at Stamford Bridge which survived for all of 90 minutes before conceding late on. Moyes clearly thought his side would fare better with Zouma back in the side, reverting to a back four and, crucially, keeping Declan Rice in midfield rather than needing him to drop into defence as he did for the final minutes against the Blues.
But although fit enough to play the full 90 minutes, Zouma didn’t quite give his manager the performance - or the clean sheet - that he desired. There were two cheap goals given away which showed a clear sign of rustiness, albeit Zouma was not solely responsible for both ending up in the back of Alphonse Areola’s net.
Zouma will no doubt start again next week in Frankfurt and will be better for his appearance last night. Moyes will be relying on him to lead from the back, knowing any goals conceded could spell the end for the Hammers’ European journey.
Still alive in the tie
While things didn’t go as planned for Moyes and West Ham, they are at least still alive in the tie and able to head to Frankfurt knowing one goal would bring them right back into things.
This European campaign has seen the Hammers show an abundance of spirit at virtually every stage of the competition, and there was still enough in the tank at the London Stadium to show supporters that the team is far from dead and buried in their bid to reach the final on May 18.
Their reaction to going behind after just 54 seconds on Thursday night was good, and it served as a reminder to Frankfurt that despite coming up against a side that didn't match the levels previously set by themselves, there was still danger posed. The team will rightly take confidence from the way they were able to haul themselves back into the tie after going behind so early on, even if those moments of inspiration tended to be uncharacteristically few and far between.
Creative spark missing
Too many times on Thursday night the London Stadium was left reeling at wasted opportunities from the Hammers in front of goal. It was not as if Frankfurt were limiting chances, far from it. The game ebbed and flowed at both ends but the difference between the two sides was that the visitors converted their big chances and the hosts failed to convert theirs.
Jarrod Bowen was denied by Kevin Trapp when he should have scored after going through one against one, while Said Benrahma - a second-half substitute for the otherwise non-existent Manuel Lanzini - spurned a golden chance to force an effort on goal when he lashed high and wide with his right foot after a brilliant touch to kill the ball in the box.
Bowen’s acrobatic effort in stoppage-time was almost the perfect get out of jail free card, but even then, the bar came to Frankfurt’s rescue and proved that, in this game, you have to make your own luck. West Ham didn’t.
“We’ve got a lot to do,” Moyes told reporters at full-time.“We’ve got to show a lot more quality than we did tonight. We didn’t show enough quality, especially in the final third when we had moments to do so and a couple of times we turned off, obviously for the goals. So, a lot of those things will need to brighten up and be better.”
Brilliant Frankfurt
It’s not all too often you can say a team truly produced their best from minute one, but at the London Stadium, it’s exactly what Eintracht Frankfurt did. Not content with easing into their European semi-final, they attacked immediately and were likely surprised at how easily they managed to hit the back of the net and silence the home crowd.
Oliver Glasner’s enterprising 3-4-2-1 system made the most of pacy wing-backs Filip Kostic and Ansgar Knauff, with the latter opening the scoring following a late run into the box and brilliant header past a rooted Alphonse Areola. The real star of the show though was 25-year-old Japanese international Daichi Kamada, who time and time again pushed Frankfurt up the pitch and played a key role in their best moves.
His trickery and craftsmanship on the ball meant he was the standout player of the game, even if the goal he scored to put Frankfurt ahead was the simplest chance of the entire evening for him to convert. Moyes will need a plan to stop him in the return leg after he was able to roam freely between the lines and stretch West Ham’s defence his pace.
There were other standouts from this team too, with the midfield pairing of Sebastian Rode and Djibril Sow putting in a monumental shift from the centre of the pitch while the experienced Kevin Trapp in goal commanded his area and cut out delivery after delivery into the box. His stop to deflect Bowen’s first-half effort onto the post was the pick of the bunch, with the white wall of Frankfurt fans behind him erupting into a frenzy once the ball was cleared to safety following what looked like a certain goal.
The Germans have travelled extremely well in the Europa League this season, which should have been no surprise following their 3-1 win at the Camp Nou in the previous round. So while West Ham can feel aggrieved that they didn’t put in a performance befitting of the occasion or of their own standards, there’s no shame in admitting that they came up against a well-drilled side who executed their game plan to near perfection in London.
