More than at any other time this season, West Ham United are aware of the need for clear heads and sound decisions in their most prominent match since their Upton Park finale six years ago.
They will leave it as late as this afternoon to decide whether to risk starting Michail Antonio for fear that their only forward seriously aggravates a thigh injury and he misses most of the run-in as they try to qualify for Europe. And their players have been warned not to get sucked into Seville’s dark arts as they seek to overturn a 1-0 deficit to reach the Europa League last eight.
David Moyes reminded his players how Manchester United were left to accuse Atletico Madrid of time-wasting and play-acting as they were eliminated from the Champions League on Tuesday. He is acutely aware his players lack deep experience of similar situations.
“If you watched Atletico, they did a great job in killing the game off and we have to be well aware of how we manage things and we don’t let it get to us,” Moyes said. “This is a gentleman’s sport. In some way we’re all desperate to win and we’d kick your granny, if you know what I mean, to try to get a result. But in the same breath, you want to win in a fair and correct fashion.”
Seville are specialists in this European competition, lifting the trophy four times in the past nine seasons, they are second behind Real Madrid in La Liga and welcome back Ivan Rakitic from suspension. “We’re going to play against a side that will make it difficult, maybe disrupt the game at times and we have to play with maturity,” Moyes said.
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“The difference is how we are able to manage our emotions in a game where free kicks could be given very cheaply. Right at the start, our mentality, knowing how to manage the game, knowing when we need to play at different speeds and how to do that, for us I hope we can show our experience.”
West Ham will be without their top scorer, Jarrod Bowen, because of a heel injury, and Antonio and Aaron Cresswell trained separately from the squad yesterday because of a thigh and knee injury respectively. Antonio has a history of hamstring problems and would be expected to be replaced by Andriy Yarmolenko, who came on for him and scored as they beat Aston Villa 2-1 on Sunday.
Yarmolenko has been dealing with an emotional rollercoaster because some of his family remain in Ukraine. “If Antonio is not fully fit I won’t take a risk,” Moyes said. “He’s not somebody I would do that with. The ‘but’ to that is that he is really important, for different reasons. He plays in a different way for us, leads the line and brings other people into the game. We need him fully fit and firing.”
West Ham have tasted big wins over Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea at the London Stadium this season but defeating Seville would eclipse all of those. Moyes said they moved to a bigger stadium for occasions like this. “I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface, I feel as if this can only be the beginning,” he said. “We feel like one of the outsiders at the moment trying to gallop and keep up with the favourites. In nearly all the games we’ve played in we’ve given the big teams a run for their money.”
West Ham v Seville
Europa League
Round of 16, second leg
Kick-off 8pm
TV: BT Sport 2
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West Ham United (4-2-3-1): A Areola — B Johnson, K Zouma, C Dawson, A Masuaku — D Rice, T Soucek — S Benrahma, M Lanzini, P Fornals — A Yarmolenko.
Seville (4-2-3-1): Bono — J Navas, J Koundé, N Gudelj, M Acuña — I Rakitic , O Torres — J M Corona, M El Haddadi, A Martial — Y En-Nesyri.
Referee C Turpin (France).
