Europa League: Boniface goal harms West Ham, Atalanta humiliates Liverpool and Roma beats Milan
Europa League: Boniface's goal harms West Ham, Atalanta humiliates Liverpool and Roma beats Milan
Bayer Leverkusen’s late shows are inevitable. On a night of dogged, selfless defending, Xabi Alonso’s side maintained their composure, used their bench, and took control of this Europa League tie with two goals in the dying stages.
All the statistics favoured the Bundesliga’s champions-elect, the shot count embarrassing, the possession absurd. West Ham fought, David Moyes’s stifling tactics giving them a chance, but the final score was realistic on the balance of play.
Not for nothing is Alonso, whose side can win the league on Sunday, management’s rising star. The goals came from two of his substitutes, Jonas Hofmann and Victor Boniface, and extended Leverkusen’s unbeaten run stands at 42 matches.
West Ham, who will be without Lucas Paquetá at the London Stadium next week, have a mountain to climb.
There had to be a tactical rejig from Moyes, the absence of Edson Álvarez in midfield and Jarrod Bowen in attack highlighting a lack of depth, a switch to a 3-4-2-1 system the wisest solution. Even then, though, it was hard to see West Ham surviving if the plan was a night of all-out sufferball.
Maintaining a threat on the break was vital and there was early encouragement for West Ham as Michail Antonio surged beyond Jonathan Tah, Leverkusen’s high line pierced, only for Mohammed Kudus to shoot weakly at Matej Kovar.
But that was an isolated foray from the visitors. Sixteen minutes in, the home fans howled as Lukasz Fabianski took an age over a free-kick. Leverkusen’s way under Alonso is to smother opponents, denying them possession, and they had already managed five shots on goal by that stage. Fabianski needed to be good to repel efforts from Alejandro Grimaldo and Amine Adli.
The action flew in one direction, Granit Xhaka controlling the midfield, Florian Wirtz and Adli mischievous in the pockets. Starved of the ball, with Bowen’s speed on the right a huge miss, West Ham grew frustrated.
Their wing-backs were not in the game and Paquetá, desperate to display his creativity, lashed out after over-elaborating. The Brazilian swiped at Adli, earning a booking that rules him out of the second leg.
Alonso told Leverkusen, who sit 16 points above Bayern Munich at the top of the Bundesliga, to stay calm.
Challenged to be more direct, Leverkusen went down the flanks, Schick’s header stretching Fabianski. The minutes ticking away, Alonso brought on Boniface and Hofmann.
Boniface caused problems. Latching on to a header from a corner, the striker’s shot was blocked by Zouma. The ball dropped to Hofmann, whose hooked shot squirmed through the bodies and past Fabianski. Leverkusen always find a way.
The tension then lifted, and they pushed for a second. Boniface would extend the lead with a glancing header in added time.
In England, Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk did not hold back with his assessment of his side’s shortcomings in their 3-0 loss at home to Atalanta admitting that the Italians punished a ‘sloppy’ display.
Atalanta led 1-0 at half-time through Gianluca Scamacca, who added a second 20 minutes after the re-start, before Mario Pasalic tucked home an Ederson rebound to round off a magnificent, albeit slightly surprising display.
Liverpool, who had been the clear favourites on home turf heading into Thursday night’s encounter, appeared slightly off the pace and were not able to produce too many clear-cut chances with Atalanta’s impressive pressing game.
Assessing his teammates' overall performance with TNT Sports after full-time, van Dijk said: “Obviously it’s not great. A very, very disappointing evening. Too many individual mistakes and we got punished for it. It feels bad.
“With the man-marking system they do, we have to do much better. When we have the ball we have to do better and be much stronger. The spaces were open and they punished us immediately.
“A very disappointing night for all of us but we can’t dwell on it for too long. We need everyone to look forward to another big game. We have to switch back to getting results.
“We were wide open. It’s more that we conceded the goals because we lost the ball in difficult areas. It hurts. But it can’t put us down. We have to react pretty quickly”.
Elsewhere, Daniele De Rossi explains how Stephan El Shaarawy reacted to his new role and hailed Romelu Lukaku’s ‘best performance’ after Roma beat Milan in the Europa League quarter-final.
The Giallorossi had been asked all week how they would neutralise the left flank, where Rafael Leao and Theo Hernandez threatened to maraud forward, and it immediately became apparent there was a plan at work.
Stephan El Shaarawy was shifted over from the left to the right side of a trident attack to help Zeki Celik, with Lorenzo Pellegrini pushing wide left, almost to replicate Milan’s 4-2-3-1 formation.
It paid off, as days after his winning header in the Derby della Capitale against Lazio, Gianluca Mancini was again decisive on a corner.
“I thought for 60-70 minutes, the way we controlled the ball was really good. We were drawing them out and then creating spaces to run into,” De Rossi told Sky Sport Italia.
“I think it was Romelu’s best performance since I have been here. We tend to judge strikers on whether they score goals, but he fought hard, held up the ball, did everything I want to see from him.”
