DISASTRA FOR HAMMERS
New-home honeymoon over after Euro humiliation
West Ham 0 Astra Giurgiu 1 Europa League Play-off 2nd leg (Astra Giurgiu win 2-1 on aggregate)
WEST HAM were booed off after a first London Stadium loss cost them a place in the group stages.
The Irons fell victim to a Filipe Teixeira strike just before half-time and, despite plenty of pressure, failed to find a way past in-form Astra keeper Silviu Lung.
West Ham 0 Astra Guirgiu 1 Play-off 2nd leg (Astra win 2-1 on agg) NEW stadium, but the same old West Ham.
The Hammers’ search for a striker has been a soap opera in itself this summer.
Now the club’s lack of firepower has cost them a place in the Europa League group stages.
Slaven Bilic and the east London side’s hierarchy have spent months searching for a marksman to address their glaring shortcomings up front.
That hunt will go on without European football to attract them to the London Stadium.
That said, the Irons need offer Wilfried Bony, Simone Zaza or Carlos Bacca whatever it would take to get them to the club.
Bilic’s men were toothless here and it must surely hurt even more that they were put out again by Astra Giurgiu, the average Romanian outfit that did for them 12 months ago.
Ex-West Brom striker Filipe Teixeira netted in first-half injury time after the home side dithered and were caught on the counterattack.
West Ham could have played all night and not replied, with their own frontman – loan signing Jonathan Calleri from Deportivo Maldonado – looking worryingly like the Irons’ answer to Spurs flop Roberto Soldado. Hammers co-chairman David Sullivan, watching from the stands after minor heart surgery this week, will have been as quickly onto the phone to a few agents last night as he was from his hospital bed. Andy Carroll keeps getting injured. Diafra Sakho isn’t ready after the breakdown of his move to West Brom, and Enner Valencia is playing like a drain. Bilic will have also have had some choice words for his defenders after the manner in which Astra took their winner. Reece Burke was robbed upfield by Cristian Sapunaru. The ball broke to Daniel Niculae who played in Teixeira and that was that.
Earlier Calleri had managed to get the ball stuck under his feet from Burke’s through-ball, when it would have been easier to score just nine minutes in.
Astra keeper Silviu Lung saved well from Pedro Obiang but the visitors would have had a second three minutes after the break had Winston Reid’s trip on Teixeira been seen.
At times it was desperate stuff from the Hammers, who needed the boot of Reid again to prevent Teixeira doubling the lead on the night on 57 minutes.
More chances came and went for the home side without success. At the final whistle, Bilic sat in the dugout for several minutes instead of heading straight down the tunnel. He really does have some thinking to do.