Kudus stars as West Ham begin another European crusade with Backa Topola win
David Moyes reserved all the kudos for Kudus as West Ham embarked on another European crusade with a jittery win.
Ghanaian winger Mohammed Kudus scored one, forced an own goal and looked the part as the Hammers recovered from skipper Angelo Ogbonna's gaffe to overpower the Serbian SuperLiga leaders. Will Ghana win the Europa League?
After ending a 43-year wait for a trophy in June, Hammers fans are entitled to dream again after £38 million Kudus, signed from Ajax last month, made an impressive full debut at the Taxpayers Stadium. But East end messiah Moyes knows they will have to play better than this if the Hammers are to tame a daunting cast of big beasts on the continent this season.
Liverpool have every chance of going deep into this competition, while Manchester United have made a promising start along the road towards dropping into the Thursday Night Smorgasbord League.
West Ham have come a long way since they managed to get turfed out of the Europa League two years running by Romanian minnows Astra Giurgiu in 2015 and 2016, but they nearly managed to slip on the first stray banana skin in their path.
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In his programme notes Moyes insisted: “We will never take these games for granted” - but it didn't look that way from his team selection. He felt liberated enough to make nine changes, including first starts for Kudus and Konstantinos Mavropanos, and the Hammers dominated territory to an embarrassing degree, but for long periods they rewrote the old adage that possession is nine-tenths of the bore.
For an hour the Irons had little to show for camping around the Serbs' 18-yard area and turning it into the biggest campsite outside the Glastonbury festival. They were lucky not to fall behind on the stroke of half-time when the unmarked Nemanja Stojic's header kissed the bar.
Petar Stanic capitalised on an error from Angelo Ogbonna to give Backa Topola the lead (HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP via Getty Images)But the Hammers' good fortune wasn't hiding for long, and within two minutes of the restart, Bocka's minnows pounced. Dithering Ogbonna, West Ham's captain for the night, was robbed just inside his own half and Petar Stanic raced clear from 40 yards out to beat Lukasz Fabianski convincingly.
Moyes had a face like the thunder clouds which had emptied their contents on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in a pre-match cloudburst, and no wonder. Their response was limp until Said Benrahma delivered his first decent cross of the night after 66 minutes and Nemanja Petrovic, under pressure from Kudus, could only help it into his own net.
Suddenly the atmosphere was lifted from moribund to vibrant, and within four minutes Kudus met Ward-Prowse's corner with a firm header into the bottom corner. And Ward-Prowse rolled another impeccable set piece off the conveyor belt, sub Tomas Soucek rose at the near post to settle West Ham's nerves eight minutes from time.
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