BT commentators react to ‘absolutely devastating’ West Ham controversy in Frankfurt
West Ham suffered an “absolutely devastating blow” to their Europa League hopes during the first half in Frankfurt according to Ian Darke and Lucy Ward.
Midway through the half Aaron Cresswell had a booking upgraded to a sending off for bringing down Jens Hauge and denying a goalscoring opportunity.
Jesus Lanzano had originally deemed it a yellow card offence, but after a VAR intervention he upgraded it to a red, leaving the Hammers with a mountain to climb, and their deficit was quickly increased to two when Rafael Borre scored.
Speaking on BT Sport match coverage (5 May, 8.18pm) Darke said as the red card came out: “Well this is an absolutely devastating blow. Cresswell gets a second red card in the knock out stages and West Ham will have to do this now with 10 men.”
Former Leeds United forward Ward then added: “It’s a massive, massive blow for West Ham. Cresswell gets himself in a position where he gets completely the wrong side.
“In that position do you bring him down? You’re down to 10 men and now West Ham put themselves in a really difficult situation.
“[David] Moyes is obviously fuming.”
When Ben Johnson was brought on to fill the gap at the back Darke said: “That is David Moyes’ response to the crisis, and it is a crisis for West Ham.”
Nightmare
A nervy opening from both sides indicated just how much is riding on tonight’s game.
An early clash with Michail Antonio saw Martin Hinteregger suffer a hamstring injury and have to be replaced, in what could prove to be telling later in the game.
Deafening noise from the home crowd accompanied the action from the get-go, but the play couldn’t match it until it exploded to live in the 19th minute.
Cresswell got his positioning all wrong and was duly punished, and this time had little to complain about compared to the contentious red he was shown in the first leg against Lyon.
Filip Kostic almost drilled the resulting free-kick home, but although that went wide a shell-shocked Irons defence gave Borre too much space to sweep the opener home on the night soon after.
Now trailing 3-1 on aggregate Moyes needs to produce the team talk of his life to allow his players to regroup and somehow come back in the second half.
In other West Ham news, there’s only one option for Hammers player if he decides he wants to leave the club.
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