West Ham smash Freiburg 5-0 to secure their place in the Europa League quarter-final.

What a difference a week can make! West Ham left Germany feeling frustrated with a 1-0 defeat but tonight made up for that and then some. The atmosphere was electric, the performance was flawless, and the win was massive.

It was always going to be important that West Ham got the first goal as early as possible if they were to go through to the next round. Thankfully, just 9 minutes in, Cresswell’s corner was met at the near post by Tomas Soucek, who headed it on to Paqueta at the back post to get the Hammers level on aggregate. 

Following the opener, the game remained in the balance with it being an end to end game. Unfortunately for them, Freiburg just lacked any sort of cutting edge and never really troubled Fabianski. West Ham on the other hand were pushing for the goal that would give them the advantage, and their effort eventually paid off as Jarrod Bowen out-strengthened Gunter for the ball before drilling it into the bottom corner from the edge of the box.

While they were in the lead at half-time, the Hammers could not grow complacent as one Freiburg goal could change the momentum of the game in an instant. Luckily, the hosts kept up the intensity of the first 45 minutes and increased their lead to 3 on the night through a lovely Cresswell finish. 

Both of the Englishmen’s goals were great, but Mohammed Kudus’ first really stole the show. The Ghanaian picked up the ball deep in West Ham’s half, using pace, power and skill to run all the way through on goal, embarrassing the Freiburg defenders on his way, before slotting it in for the Irons 4th.

Kudus was not going to stop there though, he scored yet another marvellous goal smashing the ball into the bottom corner from just outside the area in a very similar fashion to Bowen.

Defensively, every single player did their job excellently leading to the German’s barely getting a sniff at goal. Alvarez, Soucek and the whole back four should be extremely proud of the shift they put in.

It would be impossible to go through every single good individual performance but it is worth highlighting the fact that Michail Antonio had an exceptional game, putting in a performance reminiscent of a few years ago. He has not had the best of times over recent years but he was absolutely key to Freiburg’s undoing tonight.

Rightfully, our Irons 5-0 win will go down as one of the club’s greatest performances in the modern era. It is the club’s biggest ever win a European competition and it could very well end up being the confidence boost they need to finish the season as strong as possible.