West Ham United go into their Europa League second leg against Bayer Leverkusen with a mountain to climb after a 2-0 defeat in Germany last week. The tie pits the Premier League side against the newly-crowned Bundesliga champions, who are brimming with confidence.
While Leverkusen will be sporting their shiny Bundesliga winners’ medals, West Ham can take some heart from their comeback victory over another Bundesliga team, Freiburg, earlier in the competition. However, the Hammers’ recent woes were compounded by a worrying injury to young talent George Earthy in their weekend defeat to Fulham.
Manager David Moyes faces a selection headache. Key players Jarrod Bowen, Kalvin Phillips, and Alphonse Areola are all injury doubts, while Lucas Paqueta and Emerson Palmieri are suspended. Dinos Mavropanos is also a question mark after struggling to complete recent matches.
In stark contrast, Leverkusen have just two injury concerns. Strikers Borja Iglesias and Adam Hlozek are out, but their absence hasn’t hampered the team. The battle for the starting striker role between Boniface and Patrik Schick is set to continue, while the highly-rated Florian Wirtz will likely return to his creative midfield position after his impressive substitute hat-trick last week.
Leverkusen boss Gerardo Seoane boasts a deep squad, and he’s expected to unleash his attacking full-backs Jeremie Frimpong and Alejandro Grimaldo from the start. Exequiel Palacios could also come into the midfield in place of Robert Andrich.
Predicted Lineups
West Ham United: Fabianski; Zouma, Aguerd, Cresswell; Coufal, Alvarez, Soucek, Ward-Prowse, Johnson; Kudus, Antonio
Bayer Leverkusen: Hradecky; Kossounou, Tah, Stanisic; Frimpong, Xhaka, Palacios, Grimaldo; Wirtz, Adli; Boniface
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