‘WE’VE GOT TO BELIEVE THIS TIE IS STILL ALIVE’
ANTONIO BATTLE CRY AS HE REMINDS HAMMERS THEY’VE COME BACK BEFORE
MICHAIL ANTONIO is refusing to give up on West Ham’s European dream, insisting: We’ve come back before — and we’ll do it again.
His side’s hopes of reaching a third successive European final suffered a late blow here in Germany last night, as two goals in the final seven minutes put Bayer Leverkusen firmly in charge of their Europa League quarter-final tie.
It means the Hammers must come from 2-0 down in next week’s return leg in London, a monumental ask, given Xabi Alonso men are now unbeaten in 42 matches this season.
“We came here and said that if we lose, we lose by one,” Antonio said. “We’re 2-0 down, but we can’t give up. We’ve got to believe in ourselves and that we can turn things around.
“We need to get one next week, then you never know, try and take it to extratime and turn things around. We’ve done it in the last two seasons and, hopefully, we can do it again.”
The Hammers were a goal down to Freiburg at the midway stage of their last-16 tie earlier this season, only to roar back with a 5-0 home win, and have also come from behind to beat Gent and Sevilla in recent campaigns.
Their task next week will be made doubly hard, however, by the absences of Emerson and Lucas Paqueta, both of whom are suspended after yellow cards last night.
“I’ve put out tweets for the last two years saying, ‘It’s not over yet’,” Antonio added. “Normally, we’re 1-0 down, but this time it’s two, so I’ll have to say it twice!
“We have to believe. In football, it’s not over until the final whistle goes. We’ve got another 90 minutes to go, maybe 120 minutes. We keep going, keep pushing and keep believing.”
Last night’s defeat places even greater importance on Sunday’s home meeting against Fulham, as the Premier League now looks the Hammers’ most likely route back into Europe next season.
David Moyes’s side are seventh in the table, but are conceding games in hand to each of their rivals and face a tricky run-in, with Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea all still to play.
“If we can’t get into the semis and into the final to guarantee ourselves back into Europe next year, then obviously the Premier League is another way,” Antonio said. “We don’t want to give up on Europe. We constantly want to be in it, that’s another step for us.
“The Premier League is as important as playing in this quarter-final this week.”
IF WEST HAM arrived here in Germany under the acceptance that a one-goal defeat would be a decent result, then it figures that 2-0 might have felt around about par.
Certainly, it was no less than Xabi Alonso’s dominant side deserved; they held almost three-quarters of possession, completed in excess of 450 more passes and managed 33 shots to West Ham’s one.
True, the goals came late, one off the boot of Jonas Hofmann seven minutes from time, then the killer from the head of Victor Boniface in the first of that added on. But scoring late is what Leverkusen do, almost as much as losing is what they do not.
This was a 42nd match unbeaten for the German champions-elect this season, and should they extend that to 43 when Werder Bremen come here on Sunday, they may well head to London next week with a first-ever Bundesliga title secured.
So why, then, did it feel so cruel for David Moyes and his side, who were theoretically within seven minutes of halfway house parity, but visibly always clinging on?
Perhaps it was for the feeling that, on the night at least, neither he nor they could have done a great deal more.
Hamstrung by the absences of Jarrod Bowen and Edson Alvarez, in particular, there were few who thought the shift to a back-five an unnecessary act of caution, captain Kurt Zouma for the most part outstanding in leading the stand from its core. Behind them, Lukasz Fabianski was even better, making a sequence of acrobatic stops that bely the fact he will turn 39 on the morning of next week’s return.
Up front, Michail Antonio was a lonely man, but that is just how he likes it on nights like these, all chest and elbows in bullying Jonathan
Tah to forge the visitors’ only real opening of note. That Mohammed Kudus scuffed it tamely at Matej Kovar in the home goal was the evening’s one glaring regret.
“We did a really good job defensively,” Moyes (above, last night) said. “[But] we were aware of them scoring late goals and they put us under intense pressure and we found it difficult.”
But if absolved of blame on the night, then a more scrutinous eye would see this as the day when the failings of January’s transfer window bit hard.
Then, Said Benrahma and Pablo Fornals were allowed to leave the club without a replacement being signed. Neither was first-choice, nor anything like the form versions of themselves, but the pair had still made 45 appearances between them across the first half of the campaign, minutes and miles that have had to be redistributed onto already overburdened legs since.
So it was, that where Alonso had eventual goalscorers Boniface and Hofmann to bring off his bench, Moyes had, well, not much at all.
You could not exactly hang your hat on the idea that Fornals’ scurrying energy might have made a difference, as it did when he charged through for a late winner at AZ Alkmaar in last season’s Conference League last-four. Still, it would have been nice to have that — or any other — option.
Should Bowen fail to recover from a back injury in time, January’s negligence will be made even more plain. Chasing the tie, with Emerson and Lucas Paqueta suspended, Moyes may have to start one of Ben Johnson and castaway Maxwel Cornet on the wing.
Before then, the Scot faces another daunting task in trying to raise his shattered side for Sunday’s visit of Fulham. Into the Premier League run-in, the race for Europe is well and truly on. The road to Dublin, though, may just have been closed.