OH LOOK, GOALS!
West Ham 5 SC Freiburg 0
It was a little galling to think that this was a side we had comfortably beaten home and away in the group stage, but had meekly surrendered to a fortnight ago in the Round of 16 first leg, but these are the games where it’s only half time, and you’re playing the second half at home. The draws at the knock-out stage haven’t been too favourable with us over the three years we’ve been in Europe, but this one, like the one two years ago against Seville, has us holding the cards.
Tonight Ward-Prowse is on the bench, and with Emerson out, Aaron Cresswell is back in, and it’s his ninth minute corner, flicked on by Souček, that is bundled in at the far post by Lucas Paquetá. So much for the Germans keeping the Hammers at bay for 90 minutes!
On the half hour Bowen shows tenacity and strength to hassle Matthias Ginter off the ball outside the area before smashing it left foot into the corner of Atubolu’s net. Hard to believe that this is his first European goal of the season, but they have been shared out amongst the team this season. It’s not enough for the returning Cresswell to have fired over the corner for the first goal, but now he collects the ball early in the second half outside the area before taking a touch and burying it in the corner of the net. 3-0!
The game slows down a little after this early breach, and it isn’t until a quarter of an hour before the end that Mohammed Kudus stamps his class on the game, picking the ball up in his own half and running forty yards with it, past two defensive lunges before placing it in the corner of the net for a fourth. Not content with this absolute worldy, Souček and then Bowen set him up outside the area for another effort at goal, which he slaps in from the edge of the D, the replay showing that even with another couple of seconds Atubolu would still have got nowhere near it.
Looking after the game at the teams who had also that evening made their way through to the quarter-finals, West Ham could now face any one of Atalanta, Benfica, Liverpool, Marseille, Milan, Roma, or the only remaining team unbeaten in all competitions, Bayer Leverkusen. If you were someone with a predilection for a flutter, who would your money be on West Ham securing in tomorrow’s draw?
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 4 Kurt Zouma (captain), 5 Vladimir Coufal, 15 Konstantinos Mavropanos, 10 Lucas Paquetá, 19 Edson Álvarez, 28 Tomas Souček, 14 Mohammed Kudus, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 11 Kalvin Phillips, 7 James Ward-Prowse, 2 Ben Johnson, 40 George Earthy
Goalscorers: Lucas Paquetá (9), Jarrod Bowen 32), Aaron Cresswell (52), Mohammed Kudus (77, 85)
