The player who scored the winning goal in last year’s Europa Conference League final is missing. The player who holds the midfield together is out. The opposition have the most exciting young manager in Europe, are about to win the Bundesliga and have not lost a game this season. Oh, and they thrashed West Ham 4-0 when the teams met in pre‑season last summer. Enjoy.
“They haven’t lost for 41 games – it is a challenge for us,” Kurt Zouma, West Ham’s captain, said before the first leg of Thursday’s Europa League quarter-final against Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen. Jarrod Bowen, scorer of 19 goals this season, has not travelled to Germany after hurting his back against Wolves last weekend and the Mexico midfielder Edson Álvarez is suspended. The preparations could have gone better.
David Moyes, who has been working with a small squad since allowing Saïd Benrahma, Pablo Fornals and Thilo Kehrer to leave in January, has to adjust. Bowen’s absence robs West Ham of one their key counterattacking threats, while Álvarez’s latest suspension is a blow. The concern for Moyes is that his side have only won two of the seven games that Álvarez has missed since joining from Ajax last summer.
It cannot be a coincidence that the former Ajax midfielder missed the 3-2 defeat to Brentford in November, the 5-0 defeat to Fulham in December and last month’s collapse from 3-1 up against Newcastle. West Ham, who have kept one clean sheet in the league in 2024, are not as sturdy in the middle without Álvarez. A creaky back four can look vulnerable when James Ward-Prowse and Tomas Soucek are deployed as screening midfielders. Ward-Prowse and Soucek have their strengths, but neither has Álvarez’s positional sense and ball-winning qualities.
“We’ve only got ourselves to blame,” Moyes said on losing his best enforcer. “He does a good job for us in different ways. We have to play without him.”
Whatever form the rejig takes, it will not involve Kalvin Phillips. The midfielder, who has struggled since joining from Manchester City on loan in January, has not made the trip to Germany after injuring a hamstring in training.
West Ham are depleted. Moyes would not have risked starting Phillips, who had a disastrous cameo against Newcastle, but he would have wanted him on the bench. His options are sparse. Moyes has relied on a trusted core this season and can be slow to make substitutions. The only real rotation tends to come in attack, where Bowen sometimes moves in from the right flank and starts instead of Michail Antonio up front.
That lack of depth could bite against Leverkusen, who are one win from clinching the Bundesliga title. Bowen is relentless. He assists, scores and drives at full-backs. West Ham, who sit back and give up possession, need him to get them up the pitch. Moyes is unlikely to place his trust in the former Burnley winger Maxwel Cornet, who has been a bit-part player. There could be an advanced role for the attacking left-back, Emerson Palmieri, and much of the creative burden will be heaped on Antonio, Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Paquetá. “Tactically we have to be spot on,” Zouma said.
Leverkusen have broken Bayern Munich’s stranglehold on the Bundesliga, possess many ways of hurting their opponents and have been boosted by Alonso committing his future to the club. But West Ham are seasoned European competitors under Moyes. They won the Europa Conference League last season, Bowen scoring in the last minute, and have a habit of turning up in the big games.
“It’s a bit of my character, a bit of my personality,” Moyes said. “I challenge the games to be better. We’ll need big leadership.”
