Joe Cole was not happy one little bit with one West Ham player, after our defeat to Bayer Leverkusen last night.
The Bayer Leverkusen vs West Ham United Europa League clash pitted two completely different teams against each other, and in the end it was no surprise that the game ended in defeat for us.
In fairness to David Moyes and his players, the game-plan was spot on and well-executed for 80 minutes. However, I do believe that we should have been more ambitious inside the final 15 minutes of the game, in order to get them thinking about the threat we posed.
There were plenty of things on display from Xabi Alonso’s side that anyone watching would have been impressed by.
Of all things, Moyes suggested after the game that the Hammers can learn from the way that the Leverkusen ball-boys got the ball back into play so quickly.
At the end of the day, they were just too good for us. You can’t expect to sit back camped inside your own box for 90 minutes and not concede to a team with Leverkusen’s quality.
It’s incredibly frustrating that we didn’t cause them more problems going forward. Michail Antonio was brilliant for us but aside from him, nobody else really gave the Bundesliga side anything to think about.
And one player in particular let us down…
Joe Cole criticises West Ham player after Bayer Leverkusen defeat
Cole was on punditry duty in the TNT Sports studio last night.
He praised Antonio for his performance, but wasn’t quite so complimentary about one of the Jamaica international’s teammates…
Joe Cole criticised Lucas Paqueta for picking up a silly yellow card inside the first-half, when speaking on TNT Sports (April 11th, 8:54pm):
“Yes, they’re lucky not to be down to 10. He was getting frustrated, he dives in and that was a wild swipe. I can’t believe it.”
I totally agree with Cole – Paqueta let us down last night. The booking meant that he couldn’t play aggressively for the remainder of the game.
And when he had the ball inside the final third he held onto it for far too long, without causing the Bundesliga side any problems whatsoever.
I warned everyone about the danger of losing Paqueta to suspension for the second-leg before the game kicked off.
The Brazilian must have been aware of the situation that he faced, so to make such a silly, petulant challenge was unacceptable really.
West Ham United’s defeat to Bayer Leverkusen wasn’t a big shock at all. However, what did surprise me was how poor Lucas Paqueta was on the night. It’s not going over the top to suggest that he let us down badly out in Germany.
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