West Ham have already been made big underdogs for their Europa League quarter-final against Bayer Leverkusen.
West Ham will play the Bundesliga leaders in the first leg of the Europa League last eight tie on Thursday April 11th.
The Hammers will then welcome Xabi Alonso’s side to the London Stadium a week later.
David Moyes will be hoping West Ham can perform like they did against Leverkusen’s Bundesliga rivals Freiburg.
Hammers made underdogs against German “invincibles”
West Ham recorded their biggest ever European win to thump the Germans 5-0 and advance to the quarters last night.
Meanwhile, Bayer Leverkusen – unbeaten in all competitions this season – scraped through against Qarabag.
Alonso’s side are second favourites to win the tournament behind Liverpool.
And West Ham lost 4-0 to them in pre-season.
West Ham a different animal since pre-season humbling
But that was before West Ham had made any of their summer signings.
Pundits and so-called European experts are already writing West Ham in their assessments of who will make the semi-finals and final.
But one star is warning Bayer Leverkusen not to underestimate ‘frightening’ West Ham.
Michail Antonio rolled back the years with a brilliant performance to help the Hammers smash Freiburg.
He was a surprise inclusion, spearheading a more attacking West Ham line-up with James Ward-Prowse dropped to the bench.
And it certainly worked.
Now Antonio is warning West Ham are a team to be feared in Europe given the talent they have going forward and their recent experience of going deep on the continent.
Leverkusen warned about ‘frightening’ West Ham
“We are always thinking about winning it, whenever we get into Europe we believe we can win it,” Antonio told West Ham’s official website.
“There are a lot of big names out there, but we know how to win games in Europe. We got to the semi-finals two years ago and won the (UEFA Europa) Conference League last year, so hopefully this year we can do it again.
“100 per cent (I feel like we can take on anyone) especially if the second leg is at home, as that’s what you always want, so we can bring it back to our fans. It doesn’t matter if we are losing because we believe when we play here that we can win the game. We have that confidence and we managed to do it again on Thursday…
“You see the quality he (Mohammed Kudus) has with the first goal that he scored. The boy is special and hopefully we all keep kicking on,” Antonio added.
“The quality we have behind me is brilliant. Jarrod (Bowen) bags goals, Kudus also scores goals and Lucas (Paqueta) adds goals, but he is more of an assist man. But what we have going forward is frightening as we have got pace, power, strength, and the ability to score goals.”
Consider yourselves warned Leverkusen.
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