West Ham United vs SC Freiburg. UEFA Europa League Group A.
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Report from the Europa League Group A match between West Ham and Freiburg at the London Stadium on Thursday as goals from Mohammed Kudus and Edson Alvarez help David Moyes' Hammers secure Group A top spot and a place in the last 16
Thursday 14 December 2023 22:41, UK
West Ham produced a professional performance to secure top spot in Group A and a place in the Europa League last 16 with a 2-0 win over a below-par Freiburg on Thursday night.
The Hammers took the lead when Mohammed Kudus made a clever run and lashed in his seventh goal of the season, with the brilliant Edson Alvarez's first for the club doubling the lead just before the break.
Freiburg - who had won their last three games, without conceding, in all competitions - found themselves in positions of promise on several occasions, but did little to test Lukasz Fabianski, who once again deputised in goal for Alphonse Areola.
As a result, while the Hammers advance straight to the last 16, which takes place in March, the Bundesliga side will face a knockout round play-off in February to attempt to earn their spot in the next round of the competition.
As much as West Ham knew what they had to do to finish top of their group, providing an adequate response to Sunday's thumping 5-0 defeat away at Fulham was no doubt high on the priority list for David Moyes and his players.
It did not take long for them to get into their stride. First, Kudus skipped away from his man and squared for Lucas Paqueta to rattle a shot off the crossbar, before the Ghana international made a clever run to beat the offside trap, latch onto Alvarez's ball over the top and fire across Noah Atubolu, into the back of the net.
Jarrod Bowen then had the ball in the net after a carbon copy of the opener, only to be ruled offside in the build-up, but it was 2-0 when Alvarez received the ball from Paqueta, escaped his marker, collected the return pass from Bowen and fired home a damaging second just before the break.
Early in the second half, Kudus came close to a second, when he fired inches past the post after being released by Bowen, but as the game progressed, it became clearer missed chances would not be punished.
Freiburg had created 0.09 xG by the break, 0.14 by the hour mark and set-piece routines were not coming to fruition for them, either. Moyes could even afford to withdraw Bowen and Paqueta with almost 20 minutes remaining.
In fairness, the German side did manage to test Fabianski towards the end. Ritsu Doan's low effort was kept out by a well-timed dive to the right, before Merlin Rohl's shot with five minutes to play was held, too. But it was too little, too late.
West Ham manager David Moyes:
"I'm thrilled. I thought we played well for long periods, went a couple of goals up and then missed a couple of really good chances, which could have maybe wrapped it up a bit sooner that just kept us hanging on a little bit. We just didn't want to drop off it. I knew the game would change, they would come into it a bit more and we were trying to see it out more than anything in the second half. We did a really good job.
"It was a lot more like it, certainly in Europe. We've done very well in Europe over the last three years and this was a good win against a good German side; it's never easy to beat German teams. I thought we even played better tonight than we did in Freiburg - and I thought we did a good job in Freiburg as well.
"We lost to Olympiakos, but it's the only loss we've had in 19 or 20 games now. It's a great record for us because we're not a well-known European club at the moment. It's been great for us. Overall, I think we deserved it and, thankfully, we're at the top.
"Let me tell you, it is really massive [not to have to play in Europe until March] because of the amount of games everybody has got in the schedule. We're all going into a busy period, which we know - our culture means we play a lot of games around Christmas."
West Ham turn their attention back to the Premier League as they play Wolves at home on Super Sunday, live on Sky Sports with kick-off at 2pm.
Freiburg take on FC Koln in the Bundesliga on Sunday, with kick-off at 2.30pm.
