West Ham United 1-1 Bayer Leverkusen
Bayer Leverkusen win 3-1 on aggregate
UEFA Europa League quarter-final second leg, London Stadium, Thursday 18 April 2024
West Ham United’s UEFA Europa League run has been ended at the quarter-final stage by Bayer Leverkusen, despite a valiant second leg effort.
The Hammers welcomed the Germans to London Stadium hopeful of overturning a 2-0 first-leg deficit - and had those hopes boosted by a terrific start.
Michail Antonio’s early header had West Ham well and truly believing they could evoke the spirit of Seville and produce yet another night to remember under the lights.
But Leverkusen improved after the restart and struck late through Jeremie Frimpong to kill the tie and extend Die Werkself’s undefeated run to 44 matches.
The odds were stacked against West Ham before kick-off: No team had beaten the newly-crowned German Bundesliga champions this season, however, they are unlikely to face a more difficult match all campaign.
Boss Moyes made four changes to his West Ham United starting line-up from the 2-0 Premier League defeat by Fulham last time out, with Jarrod Bowen, Kurt Zouma, Aaron Cresswell and Tomáš Souček are all coming into the team, while Dinos Mavropanos, Emerson, Lucas Paquetá and Danny Ings were the four players who missed out.
Had the first half been a boxing match London Stadium, the referee would have stopped it. The opening 45 minutes of West Ham’s agonising aggregate defeat saw a one-sided exhibition that few outsiders would have expected.
The Hammers flew out of the blocks like a side who knew the exact scale of their task - to beat a side who haven't lost a game in all competitions since May 2023.
After Nathan Tella’s early long-range effort was tipped around the post at full stretch by Łukasz Fabiański, the visitors were soon under a strain of relentless pressure for remainder of the first half.
Early pressure soon paid off for the Hammers, as they took a deserved 13th-minute lead. The returning Jarrod Bowen played a brilliant one-two with Vladimír Coufal on the right, before his whipped cross found Antonio, who escaped the offside trap and rose highest above Odilon Kossounou to head home beyond Matěj Kovář.
The aggregate lead halved, and the visitors looked shell-shocked. But the chances kept on coming for the Irons, which kept a boisterous home crowd noisy and engaged.
Mohammed Kudus was next to take advantage of some lax Leverkusen defending when he chased down a ball out of nothing and created a chance, but his goalbound shot - via a deflection - was just about recovered by the wrong-footed Kovář.
Leverkusen looked a shadow of the side that had enjoyed so much success both domestically and on the continental stage this season, and it was impossible to tell that they were Europe's most in-form side.
West Ham thought they had doubled their lead minutes later, as Bowen latched onto a Kudus cross at the back-post unmarked, but he was somehow denied by the outstretched legs of Kovář, as Moyes collapsed to the ground in disbelief.
A full-blooded encounter, which included eleven yellow cards, saw tension float towards the touchline on the half-half mark. West Ham assistant coach Billy McKinlay and Sebastián Parrilla, one of Leverkusen’s backroom staff, were both shown red cards for a heated confrontation.
Antonio, who was at the centre of most major talking points on the night, was next to test the visiting back-line, almost adding his and the Hammers’ second of the evening from another Bowen cross, though this time, his header was blocked.
The visitors looked reinvigorated after the break, likely inspired by a harsh half-time word and an inspired double substitution by Xabi Alonso, replacing Patrik Schick and Nathan Tella with Victor Boniface and Frimpong.
Leverkusen spurned a gilt-edged chance to level after 50 minutes. Substitute Frimpong evaded his marker down the right channel before his driven cross, aimed at Florian Wirtz, was skied over the bar from just outside the box.
At the other end, Bowen was instrumental for the Hammers. The 27-year-old showed some great perseverance to dispossess Piero Hincapié inside his own box before squaring across the face of goal, though it narrowly evaded three attacking West Ham players.
Clear-cut chances were soon at a premium in a stop-start second period, with Leverkusen doing their best to spoil the Hammers' flow.
Fabiański was called into action to make the first real save of the second half, as he made a smart stop to deny Frimpong, whose mis-hit cross nearly crept in at the far post.
As West Ham pushed bodies forward searching for an all-important second, they were almost left exposed on the counter-attack. Frimpong latched onto a through ball and soon found himself one-on-one with Fabiański, but fired his effort high over the bar.
However, the Netherlands wing-back made amends for his earlier miss in the final minute, as his effort took a wicked deflection off Aaron Cresswell and went beyond Fabiański to book the visitors' spot in the semi-finals.
West Ham United: Fabiański, Coufal (Johnson 84), Zouma ©, Aguerd (Ogbonna 45+2), Cresswell, (Cornet 84), Ward-Prowse, Souček, Kudus, Bowen, Antonio
Subs: Anang (GK), Knightbridge (GK), Ings, Mubama, Orford, Casey, Swyer
Goal: Antonio 13
Booked: Antonio, Bowen, Coufal, Zouma, Souček
Bayer Leverkusen: Kovář, Stanišić, Tah ©, Kossounou (Tapsoba 29), Hincapié, Palacios, Xhaka, Tella (Frimpong 46), Wirtz (Andrich 87), Grimaldo (Adli 68), Schick (Boniface 46)
Subs: Hradecky (GK), Lomb (GK), Hofmann, Arthur, Puerta, Izekor
Goal: Frimpong 89
Booked: Kossounou, Tah, Palacios, Kovář, Adli
Referee: José Maria Sánchez (ESP)
Attendance: 62,473
