West Ham’s hopes of winning the Europa League are over after their 10-men fell to a semi-final defeat against German side Eintracht Frankfurt.
Aaron Cresswell’s red card in the 19 th minute – his second sending off in the knockout stages of the competition – set the tone for a difficult night for the visitors, who already had an uphill task having lost the first leg in the London Stadium 2-1 last week. Soon after, Rafael Borre opened the scoring for Frankfurt on the night to give them a two-goal aggregate advantage.
It was a disappointing end to a wonderful European campaign from the Hammers, whose run had seen them eliminate Sevilla and Lyon in the knockout stages. Here are five talking points from an atmospheric Deutsche Bank Park.
Cresswell’s Euro nightmare
When Aaron Cresswell was sent-off against Olympique Lyonnais at the quarter final stage of the competition, he could argue that he was harshly done by. That incident appeared to be a coming together with Moussa Dembele and there was plenty of sympathy for the left-back with the sending-off decision. Cresswell’s red card in this clash was a different story.
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While the foul he committed was not particularly egregious in itself, it unquestionably was an infringement, he undoubtedly was the last defender and it was the denial of a clear goalscoring opportunity for the hosts.
For West Ham to find themselves a man down within the opening 20 minutes turned an uphill task into a highly improbable one and left them staring down the barrel of a painful elimination.
Hammers season takes it toll…
West Ham have had a gruelling season with this lengthy European campaign coinciding with two reasonable stints in their domestic cup duties. For any squad this may prove somewhat taxing but for the East London club, this rang particularly true.
Of the six non-defenders who started this match, Manuel Lanzini was the player with the lowest number of games this season at 42. Michail Antonio (44), Declan Rice (47), Jarrod Bowen (48) and Tomas Soucek (49) have all had taxing campaigns, with Pablo Fornals at 51 matches the most used star.
This was something that could and should have been foreseen by the club ahead of the campaign due to their qualification for Europe, but they did not sufficiently add to their squad. This has seen the side slip to seventh in the Premier League and miss a golden opportunity of landing a European title.
…as campaign peters out
This was a season that promised so much for West Ham but now looks set to end with huge disappointment. Until recently, they were in the thick of a top four race and had emerged as one of the favourites to lift the Europa League trophy this month.
It followed beating both Manchester clubs in the EFL Cup and going through multiple rounds in the FA Cup only to ultimately fall short in both competitions. Now they have fallen to seventh in the standings and could be overtaken by Wolves, meaning they would not qualify for Europe at all next season.
Moyes’s side have picked up just four wins from their last 15 matches – a run which has now encompassed nine defeats – with momentum entirely lost from a hugely encouraging first half of the season.
Moyes loses his cool
This was always going to be a difficult assignment for West Ham and to have had any chance of turning this tie around, they had to keep their composure. Cresswell’s early red card would have proved massively frustrating, but he was not the only Hammer to see red.
Boss David Moyes was dismissed in the second half after losing his cool when the ball was returned to the pitch slowly after going out for a throw-in near the technical area. Whenever the Scot received the ball, he booted it back strongly in the direction of the Frankfurt bench and left the officials no choice but to send him off too. On a night for cool heads, the Hammers boss lost his.
Amazing atmosphere
At this stage of a European competition, there is an expectation that the atmosphere generated by home fans will be spectacular. Even with this in mind, the noise, colour and atmosphere created by Frankfurt’s support surpassed all of that.
The Deutsche Bank Park was a cacophony of noise with the 51,500 stadium at maximum capacity for this occasion – in which they were aiming to reach their first final in this competition since they lifted the trophy in 1980.
