West Ham’s near-death experience should perk them up
West Ham play Astra Giurgiu night looking to exorcise the ghosts of a trip to Malta.
The Hammers narrowly avoided embarrassment on penalties last week as they went through at the expense of Birkirkara. This time Slaven Bilic will be hoping that his side manage to do a more professional job against the Romanian outfit this time around.
Last week’s jaunt to Malta was indeed a fiasco for the Hammers and their new boss, and the thought of not taking the chance to give their stately old Boleyn Ground a proper European send off this season is a horrible one. But the travails of last week might just be the tonic that forces West Ham into action.
For Premier League clubs in Europe, the qualifying rounds are very dangerous places. There isn’t much to gain – you already expect to be playing in Europe come September – but there’s an awful lot to lose. It’s not just going out of the competition early, it’s starting your season off in terrible fashion (just ask Hull how it worked for them), and it’s the pride lost, the fact that some minnows from a nation you didn’t even know played football slaughtered your side in full view of the whole world. Not even pulling a sickie will get you out of the workplace conversations about that one.
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Premier League clubs in the the qualifying rounds are like prize stallions, everyone wants to draw them and to see them in action, but everyone really expects them to wipe the floor with the opposition. So being dumped out in the qualifying round is a terrible thing to suffer.
But there are other things to take into account. For one thing, starting your competitive fixtures in mid-July is madness – there’s no time for a proper pre-season, the competitive European fixtures become more like friendly run-outs, and instead of travelling around Eastern Europe, your manager should be finishing up deals for new signings and getting things sorted for the rest of the season. All of these things are factors in the fiasco endured by West Ham last week, but it might actually be a blessing in disguise.
Maybe West Ham will take the next few European tasks less lightly than perhaps they took the Maltese test. Maybe the Premier League stallion from East London will perk up a bit more at the thought of trips around the continent on Thursday nights. Maybe what West Ham went through in Malta was a footballing act of gingering, a cruel way of making a horse lift its tail high and perform better. It’s certainly not pleasant, but for West Ham it might just do the job.
With Bilic on the sidelines, looming large over the players and metaphorically wielding a big stick – or ginger root – they shouldn’t slip up. After coming so close to utter embarrassment at the hands of a team that are only charitably described as minnows, maybe West Ham will liven up and embrace the Europa League now.
Once bitten, twice shy, West Ham will not want to go through that again.
But relief now turns to action. It’s all well and good to talk about how the Irons can use that relief to spur them on, but now they need to actually do it. Like a man who has had a near-death experience, West Ham have pledged to turn their lives around and make every moment count, taking nothing for granted.
Two more ties to get through and West Ham will be in the Europa League group stages and it will be job done for now. They need to use Malta and the fear of failing to spur them on to victory night.
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Maybe it will exorcise the ghosts of last week.
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