West Ham’s horror show exposes
EST HAM’S disappointed fans can’t say they weren’t warned. Slaven Bilic had said that just because their club are now playing in a big stadium, it doesn’t automatically make them a big club — not yet anyway.
“Billericay Town could rent Wembley and play their home games but would it suddenly make them a big club?” he had asked before the big move.
How right the West Ham manager turned out to be because his team, shorn of most of their best players, looked like Billericay on an off-day as they crashed out of the Europa League, beaten 1-0 on the night and 2-1 on aggregate by Astra Giurgiu.
It was the second time in two years the Romanians had knocked West Ham out at the qualifying stage and the result underlined Bilic ’s prophetic words that: “You need good players, a good team. It was the same with Manchester Cit y when they got all the money. It didn’t happen for them straight after. They took a few years to start winning things.”
Clubs with bigger and better squads than West Ham have struggled in the demanding Europa League but, as Bilic acknowledged, it would have been nice to have at least extended the adventure to the group stages. “We wanted to play in Europe,” he said. “We wanted to have this experience because this club were not often in European football.”
Bilic will undoubtedly have learned more about the players he picked last night from this defeat. Without nine first-team regulars, he had no alternative but to persist with a largely inexperienced line-up similar to that which drew 1-1 in Romania a week earlier — with one exception.
Already without the creative influence of players such as Dimitri Payet and Manuel Lanzini, West Ham were also missing influential captain Mark Noble with injury. Without that midfield trio, his side had no guile, no imagination, no tempo and, ultimately, no chance. As a result, West Ham were functional at best and inferior to Astra in technique and, often, collective desire. Astra head coach Marius Sumudica revelled in his side’s victory, comparing the players in his squad who earn “135 euros a month” with West Ham’s high rollers.
West Ham, who are close to sealing a £25million deal for Juventus striker Simone Zaza, had their moments but were foiled by fine goalkeeping from Silviu Lung and poor finishing, especially from Jonathan Calleri.
The decisive goal came just before half-time, scored by Filipe Teixeira, and for all their effort, West Ham could do little to pull things around.
“I said before the game that this is one of the most important games of the year for us,” said Bilic. In the Premier League you can make it up but this was like a final that we had to win to go through. Okay, you can always find excuses like missing players or creating few opportunities but we didn’t play well, especially in the first half.
“We didn’t play with desire as a team, it was all individual. We were second best and if you give their players space — if you don’t put them under pressure — they can pass the ball. There was no movement, we played slowly and we missed the few chances we had.
“To be fair we changed a bit in the second half. All the time you are thinking, ‘we have to do something, we have to change the system or one or two players’ but deep in your mind you know it is not about the system, it’s about the way we played.
“I’m much more disappointed than