If David Moyes is looking for encouragement that West Ham can beat Bayer Leverkusen then he now has plenty.
West Ham annihilated Freiburg 5-0 to advance to the last eight of the Europa League.
Their reward? A quarter-final tie against another Bundesliga side.
As far as German teams go, they don’t come much tougher than Xabi Alonso’s remarkable table toppers Bayer Leverkusen.
Astonishingly Leverkusen are unbeaten across all competitions this season.
And they remain so too after beating the team West Ham have just vanquished with ease.
Freiburg just played Bayer Leverkusen and West Ham boss David Moyes will be very encouraged.
Qarabag had already showed Leverkusen can be got at defensively by scoring four goals against them over their two last 16 legs.
The Azerbaijani side came agonisingly close to knocking Germany’s invincibles out.
And given the gulf between most Premier League and Bundesliga sides, pundits should be wary of rushing to make West Ham massive underdogs.
Especially over two legs.
Well Moyes and the Hammers will be heartened by the fact Freiburg were narrowly beaten 3-2 by Alonso’s side on Sunday afternoon.
While West Ham were somehow being held to a 1-1 draw with Aston Villa, Freiburg were unlucky not to share the spoils with Leverkusen in a 3-2 home loss.
Florian Wirtz put Leverkusen 1-0 up after just two minutes. But Freiburg were level eight minutes later through tricky Ritsu Doan.
Former Hammers targets Adam Hlozek and Patrick Schick made it 3-1 with goals either side of half-time.
Yannik Keitel got one back for Freiburg with 11 minutes to play but could not find an equaliser despite having 11 attempts at goal in the game.
West Ham will watch this back and will be confident they can cause Leverkusen serious problems at the back.
Their defence is definitely there to be got at. The issue Moyes has is that for the last few months his has been too.
Leverkusen are now 10 points clear of Bayern Munich and on course to win the title with eight games to go.
West Ham’s quarter-final opponents have been second favourites for the Europa League behind Liverpool.
And the Hammers have actually played Bayer Leverkusen in pre-season, losing that game 4-0.
But – significantly – West Ham had not made any notable signings at that time with the likes of Mohammed Kudus, Edson Alvarez and co joining after what was our final season warm-up game.
So West Ham are a completely different outfit now.
If Qarabag and Freiburg – to name just two – can put six goals past Leverkusen in three games then West Ham should go into the tie with real belief.
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