Dozing West Ham stars need to wake up to the rare trophy chance reality staring them in the face says former hero Joe Cole.
The only real positive for West Ham from a 1-1 draw in Gent is that they did not lose and now have home advantage for the second leg at the London Stadium next Thursday.
If David Moyes was looking for an improved performance from his side after unconvincing wins over Fulham and Southampton either side of a 5-1 home defeat to Newcastle last week, he didn’t get it.
And the Hammers boss was critical of the performance after the game saying he was not happy with what he saw.
That echoed thoughts of West Ham fans who are finding their side a really hard watch this season.
One of the club’s former stars, Joe Cole, knows all about what it takes to win trophies.
And he was covering West Ham’s 1-1 Europa Conference League quarter-final first leg draw with Gent for BT Sport.
When UEFA made the double draw for the quarters and semis, it opened up a dream path to the final for West Ham with the club completely avoiding the other three remaining big hitters Fiorentina, Nice and Basel.
West Ham have been made favourites to win the competition. But that did little to justify that tag in Belgium.
Dozing West Ham stars need to wake up to the rare trophy chance reality staring them in the face says former hero Cole.
Cole says West Ham ‘got away with one’ in Gent and also warned the players this may be their best chance of winning a trophy in their careers.
Dozing West Ham stars need to wake up to rare trophy chance reality staring them in the face says former hero Joe Cole
“The performance was poor, really poor,” Cole said after the game.
“They look like a team that wasn’t up for it tonight… the lads have to get back on that plane tonight and think to themselves ‘we’re lucky it’s in our hands’. Because that could quite easily have gone very, very wrong and it all starts from their mentality and how they started the game, there wasn’t enough intensity in their play.
“And what I would say is to this group of players, a lot of these players will never get a better opportunity to win a major trophy than what they’ve gone in front of them. And I think West Ham have got away with one tonight.”
Well said that man.
The likes of captain Declan Rice and others persistently talk about their desire to win trophies.
Let’s hope some of them listen to Cole and liven up for the second leg next week. Because who knows when West Ham will get a chance like this again.
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