Frankfurt 2: Electric Boogaloo

EXETERHAMMER

We will be lucky to keep Rice for another season. He is World Class and there will be many clubs after him this summer.

horshamhammer

What really winds me up is seeing Fornals pelted with bottles when trying to take a corner and then seeing a mass pitch invasion from their arrogant fans at the final whistle. Hope Rangers stuff them in the final.

claretandbluesky

I think over the two legs I would sum it by saying Frankfurt made look easy what we struggled to do and made look difficult. I think to get to the Semi's was a good achievement but it was definitely a what could have been moment as we would have had a great chance against Rangers. to be fair however the two biggest names in this Europa league were Barcelona and Dortmund and we have the two sides who beat them in the final. You can't deny they have earned their places.

I don't actually think we would have won even had Cresswell stayed on but I would love to have found out. Sadly once he went it was game over.

WHU_Champo_league_in_7_years

Lukerz said:

I thought Moyes also conducted himself poorly with that red card. Not a great night for us after handling ourselves so well until now. Looked out of our depth.

I mean, we were

Like it or not, we've never come close to something like this

So yes, we were out of our depth, not sure why that's surprising

City are still out of their depth in the champions league and they've been a mainstay for 10 years and have spent over a billion pounds

yoyo

Gutted, cheesed off, yet I still applaud our team

chicagohammer

Just watched the game and feel very emotional, feel proud of the team overall, no complaints with the sending off, thought we may be up for a drubbing but to deny them much of any opportunity to materially increase the deficit when down to 10 men over 70mins, in such a cauldron, is no small feat.

Antonio and Zouma looked leggy to me but Antonio especially has given everything this season and we never gave up right up until the end, and even managed to create a few half chances.

Put it this way, the first thing I did after it was all over was to buy a shirt, had not really thought about the away shirt this season, but after that game, I had to pull the trigger.

COYI

Pearces_Left_Foot

On reflection we exceeded my expectations for how we would do in Europe we had some proper electric nights under the lights and the victorories over Lyon and Sevilla with live long in the memory. I think our squad was too thin to cope the exertions in Europe and it caught up with us. Other teams have struggled with this not just us , Leicester this season wolves last season etc . I hope we can build on this season and get more depth over the summer and plug some of the holes in the squad..

BubblesNeverDies

What I would like to know is where is all the outrage that would have been splashed over all the headlines and the BBC directed at West Ham if it had been West Ham fans throwing things at an Eintracht player trying to take a corner, or if it had been thousands of West Ham fans invading the pitch and heading for the EF fans section to taunt or worse.

Really want Rangers to smash them.

Pearces_Left_Foot

Dont forget the flares and ripping out seats Bubbles

Slacker

In the cold light of morning my main feeling is pride.No real need to discuss this particular match, we’ve gone so far and just fell short.
At the end of the day my team lost a football match, albeit a very special one, but life goes on and I’m thankful I’m not living in an underground bunker in Ukraine.

Hamstew

Hugely proud of the team. I still feel let down by Cresswell but he must be feeling awful today so I'd like to hope he's ok mentally.
I hope they can get themselves prepared for this week. Going from such an intense and important game to then going away at an already relegated Norwich City could be hard for them.

buffybegood

One thing I hadn't really thought of until this morning is that we've had 3 straight reds in the last 8 matches, all by defenders who've played an awful lot of matches for us this season. Just wondered whether physical and mental tiredness comes into play; physically by not quite having the edge to leave themselves exposed, and mentally affecting their split second decision making?

Hugely disappointed as the evening was a complete anti-climax after the red card (and particularly after they then scored), but c'est la vie.

Fortuneseeker

buffy, Two of those red cards are for Cresswell who not wishing to hang him out to dry isn't the defender he was & that is why some have been asking for a proper new left back to be brought in to replace him.

OutcastLondoner

buffybegood said:

One thing I hadn't really thought of until this morning is that we've had 3 straight reds in the last 8 matches, all by defenders who've played an awful lot of matches for us this season. Just wondered whether physical and mental tiredness comes into play; physically by not quite having the edge to leave themselves exposed, and mentally affecting their split second decision making?

Hugely disappointed as the evening was a complete anti-climax after the red card (and particularly after they then scored), but c'est la vie.

I thought about this as well. On top of the tiredness I wonder also whether it was the pressure building up - being so desperate to not get beaten that they make these mistakes.

Hamstew

https://twitter.com/Oddschanger/status/1522524976850558978

Warning of some bad language.

Dodger58

Sounds like he wasn't impressed

Fortuneseeker

The Referee has a reputation so his performance or the lack of it didn't come as a big surprise to me.

claretandbluesky

He could have been a lot worse if he hadn't revisited his yellow to Creswell, it was a clear Red and he almost just gave a yellow. Creswell's Red against Lyon was very debatable but this was not.

alderz

Both of Cresswell's reds have happened when he has been drawn across centrally. Zouma was the left sided CB for the first, and central for the second, and was on the right hand part of the pitch for both so Cresswell came in centrally. One ball over the top and Cresswell can't really deal with the physicality of a centre forward, and pulls them down.

Partly, I think this has happened because of the 3 at the back system. I just think Cresswell has shown that he’s not a CB, even in a 3. It hasn’t worked without Ogbonna, IMO. Previously Ogbonna would move out to the left naturally and support Cresswell. Zouma and Dawson both head to the right and isolate him. We’ve also seen that Fornals is very, very far from a LWB.

PrestonHammer

No doubt this will be addressed in the summer. 🤔

steve

Anyone else feel tired and wiped out after yesterday

Bazshuayi

You mentioned yesterday that you wanted some of what I was having (it didn't load for some reason yesterday, probably the refs fault) and sounds like you need it today mate...

ASLEFshrugged

Actually West Ham losing wasn't the worst thing that happened to me in the last 48 hours, an utter horrorshow that involved me having to do a 24 mile round trip on public transport today (three trains, five buses and a minicab), getting into work an hour and a half late with my train cancelled (that goes on my record)

All because some bloke called George couldn't work out the concept of doorbells

I look at it this way

28th December 2019 Pellegrini was sacked, we'd just lost 2-1 at home to Leicester and we were 17th on 19pts after 19 matches

Could anyone have imagined that 2 years, 4 months and 8 days later we'd be 7th on 52 points after 35 games and had lost in a Europa League semi final?

This is just the start. Imagine what we are going to be like in another 2 years, 5 years, 10 years...

Trust the Moyesiah

BubblesNeverDies

Interesting read.

https://www.westhamtillidie.com/posts/if-it-wasn-t-for-bad-luck-we-d-have-no-luck-at-all

Lukerz

I wasn’t disappointed we lost. I’m not going to abuse Cresswell for making an instinctive decision when put in an awkward position.

What I was frustrated about was, after a week of build-up, the game was almost over after 20 minutes & the way Moyes & then Rice conducted themselves. They have both done wonders for me but that was not a great advert for our club from either of them. Manager & captain.

alderz

You weren’t disappointed that we lost?

OldCastleSwift

Lukerz said:

I wasn’t disappointed we lost. I’m not going to abuse Cresswell for making an instinctive decision when put in an awkward position.

What I was frustrated about was, after a week of build-up, the game was almost over after 20 minutes & the way Moyes & then Rice conducted themselves. They have both done wonders for me but that was not a great advert for our club from either of them. Manager & captain.

You weren't disappointed we lost? Really?

The game was almost over after 20 minutes because Cresswell made exactly the same mistake he made two games prior. I'm not saying he deserves the dog's abuse he's been getting online, but he is largely responsible for the game running away from us.

But yeah, Rice and Moyes' conduct wasn't great. I absolutely get the frustration, but both could face fines or bans because of their behaviour and it isn't a good look.

BubblesNeverDies

OldCastleSwift said:

But yeah, Rice and Moyes' conduct wasn't great. I absolutely get the frustration, but both could face fines or bans because of their behaviour and it isn't a good look.

I think there should be much more attention paid to the lack of crowd control during and after the match, the behaviour of EF supporters before and during the match, the behaviour of EF players and bench during the match.
Rice and Moyes's behaviour was almost a lesson in restraint.

IronHerb

Slacker said:

In the cold light of morning my main feeling is pride.No real need to discuss this particular match, we’ve gone so far and just fell short.
At the end of the day my team lost a football match, albeit a very special one, but life goes on and I’m thankful I’m not living in an underground bunker in Ukraine.

Bang on Slacker.

A few reflections.

The best team won but we did shoot ourselves in the foot, in both legs ☺️, which against strong opposition is pushing your luck.

The atmosphere in stadium was absolutely mind blowing.

Don't paint all Eintracht with the violent idiot brush. The concourse behind us was not segregated so we all mixed in the bars and loos. A visible police presence of course but ordinary fans enjoying their football. After the game the home fans applauded us Hammers as we made our way home outside the stadium, very classy.

The 'ultras' just need to be destroyed. They are modelled on the old ICF except they picked on small groups of 'ordinary' fans in very violent ways. One of our group was 'bottled' but fortunately got his hand in front of his face and received 8 stitches in a hand wound.

The great moment of the night was when Coufal walked across to us away fans, clapping, sharing the moment and throwing his shirt into the crowd, while the Eintracht fans were on the pitch. There were couple of minders with him but he wanted to be there. Brilliant.

Strangely enough I'm still on a bit of a high because, like many, I didn't think this kind of opportunity would materialise and it did and I just got swept along on the wave.

We have to do this again.

COYI

I will now take questions. 😂

OldCastleSwift

BubblesNeverDies said:

OldCastleSwift said:

But yeah, Rice and Moyes' conduct wasn't great. I absolutely get the frustration, but both could face fines or bans because of their behaviour and it isn't a good look.

I think there should be much more attention paid to the lack of crowd control during and after the match, the behaviour of EF supporters before and during the match, the behaviour of EF players and bench during the match.
Rice and Moyes's behaviour was almost a lesson in restraint.

The two things aren't mutually exclusive. Yes, there were other issues that night, but West Ham can't control or be held responsible for the actions of others outside of the club.

Rice accusing the ref of being corrupt and Moyes volleying a ball at a child, however high emotions were running, doesn't reflect well on the club.

If that was Kane and Conte there'd be plenty of West Ham fans accusing them of being petulant and bad losers.