Topic: UEFA Europa League 2023/24 Season - page 217. (Read 58988 times)

Leverkusen must approach their match against West Ham with caution, respect for the opponent. They need to settle a mindset geared towards West Ham challenges, because they are Champion of Conference League. Leverkusen's involvement in multiple competitions adds pressure and demands on the team's resources and energy. Xabi Alonso have to manage his players' fitness, apply rotation and tactical adjustments, because those become crucial during such periods to ensure optimal performance and results across all competitions.

West Ham may not be in their best form in the Premier League currently, but it would be unwise for Leverkusen to underestimate them in the upcoming quarter-final match. Teams from different leagues often bring unique challenges and styles of play, and West Ham could prove to be a formidable opponent, especially in a knockout competition. Xabi Alonso should be mindful of the competitiveness of Premier League teams, Their physicality, intensity, and unpredictability are capable of raising their game and causing upsets against opposition from other leagues.

If you take a look their squad against Qarabag in leg 2, Xabi Alonso used too many substituted players. It is very different when they played against Freiburg, Xabi Alonso used their main defenders. That's why Qarabag could score 2 goals in Leg 2. Meanwhile the reason why Leverkusen got 2 conceded goals against Freiburg, it is because Freiburg is one of the top team in Bundesliga.

I agree that West Ham is a strong team, Xabi Alonso couldn't experience a new lineup again. West Ham has great attackers, they will destroy Leverkusen defense if Xabi used substituted defenders. I'm sure Xabi has learned well from the mistake when Leverkusen played against Qarabag. We don't need to feel too worried, Xabi Alonso is a smart manager (coach).



Source: bundesliga.com

Considering how well West Ham have performed in the UEFA Europa League competition since the start of the season, I think it'll be a very bad idea for any team in the the competition to underestimate their strength. West Ham and s an English Premier League club who has what it takes to face any of the remaining eight teams in the competition and I expect them to give their all when facing any team.
They'll face German Bundesliga leaders Bayer Leverkusen in the quarter finals of the UEFA Europa League competition and because of the superior performance of Leverkusen this season when compared to West Ham, many are of the opinion that it'll be an easy tie for the German team but I don't think it'll be as easy as many thinks. West Ham isn't in strong competition to win any other trophy this season apart from the UEFA Europa League trophy and for a team that won the UEFA Conference League last season and knew how good it is to win a major trophy, I expect them to give their all against Bayer Leverkusen. If I'm to stake on the game, I'l bet on a Bayer Leverkusen win but I don't expect it to be an easy one for them

This is a quarter-final match, all teams will give everything to give their best and indeed no one will be underestimated here because currently those in the Europa League quarter-finals are the best teams.
In predicting and placing bets, we each have our own point of view and indeed there are many things that tend to be more profitable or more favorable for Leverkusen to be able to beat West Ham after seeing the performance of both teams as a whole this season, but that doesn't mean there aren't any surprises that might happen and In fact, I really believe this match will be more difficult for Leverkusen.

Personally, I'm still not sure that Leverkusen will lose here.
After seeing the strength of the team and the consistency they have maintained since the start of this season, I really favor them to be in the Europa League final this season.

Yes, all of us are aware of this where Leverkusen defend should start to be addressed by Xabi Alonso later, Leverkusen defense is starting to look a little fragile and even they often concede first both in the league and Europa League as happened to Qarabag and Freiburg, but I think a little bit of the current defensive fragility of Leverkusen can be covered by the sharpness of the attack they have so that at least it can prevent them from defeat in every game they play.

Leverkusen are now starting to enter a busy schedule both in the league, DFB pokal and even now they have to focus on facing the quarter-finals against West Ham, West Ham who currently do not have a good performance in the Premier League may look a little weak for Leverkusen, but I am quite sure if Leverkusen will struggle in that match, so far Leverkusen have faced small teams from the league that are not competitive but they should not Underestimating teams from the Premier League including West Ham who are likely to surprise for Leverkusen in the quarterfinals later.

Im worried about Bayer Leverkusen's recent performances, especially after seeing them concede goals like crazy. Allowing in four goals against Qarabag and two against Freiburg indicates a defense problem. With their Bundesliga rank, they should be stronger in the back. Here we are discussing their leaky defense. I suppose West Ham may smell blood. They may not be Premier League titans, but their intensity might challenge Leverkusen. If Leverkusen doesnt get a good lead in the first leg, the return match may be a nightmare. West Ham's volatility might exploit Leverkusen's defense.

I'm still wondering what metric is used to determine if West Ham is too weak for Leverkusen. I'm curious about that since these clubs rarely face each other in the Europa League, too. It makes me doubt it. If I consider the results in the domestic league, yeah, the difference is so big, but you can't really compare the EPL to the Bundesliga.
The fact that if westham gets draw against aston villa which was also placing at the top 4 of premier league this time. Is it not enough to prove the capability of Westham? I think that we shall never try to underestimate our opponents. The result will be so bad. Leverkusen is strong but it doesn't mean westham will lose without even fightin against leverkusen.

Not really. Leverkusen may be struggling to beat West Ham. I know West Ham as a club with a very good defensive line. It's also very often making the big clubs in the EPL struggle to beat it. Leverkusen may be getting a struggle to beat West Ham soon.
Anything is still possible in the football. Westham can surprise leverkusen with its solid low block strategy which was also making many big clubs hard to break it.

Milan have never won the Europa League, which in my opinion is one of the targets they have to prepare and perform optimally in the remaining Europa League matches very seriously to reach the final. And the meeting with Roma in the quarter-finals will be a challenge for Milan to beat Roma like in the last match, and Milan is the favorite because they will play at home, which is a difficult thing for Roma. The reason is that Milan always scores 2 goals at home when facing Roma.
And I'm not sure De Rossi has good abilities when facing Milan, maybe playing defensively is one of his strategies against Milan in the hope of getting a draw, and will prove it in the second leg at home to Roma. However, I am not sure Milan will get a draw at home in the first leg.

I also don't think anyone will underestimate West Ham. I would like to remind that they were the winner of the Conference League title in the previous season. 

They take these tournaments really seriously. After especially seeing how Leverkusen struggled against Qarabag the last time this matchup seems likely to be quite competitive as well. Xabi Alonso has an incredible record this season. They are still unbeaten.    I'm really curious about whether West Ham will be able to put an end to this huge record if Leverkusen don't lose until then. West Ham have much more capable players than Qarabag so technically they are more likely on paper.

When it comes to my opinion on which one to advance I would still favour Leverkusen because of their much more convincing look. 

Nobody is underestimating West Ham, but the fact is that they are too weak for Leverkusen who has never accepted defeat since the beginning of this season in all competitions. This makes to feel that it will be difficult for West Ham to survive in this match, because they are not that strong and from the premier league result we can see how inconsistent they are.

Leverkusen is lucky that they are playing West Ham in the quarter finals and I must say that it will be an easy win for them. However, the match might be more difficult athan what I thought.

Yes, everyone will definitely have the same prediction after seeing the last meeting between these two clubs, Milan is still ahead with a win and in the 1st leg match, Milan will be the host and usually will score 2 more and if Roma concedes more than 2 of course it will be difficult to catch up with the aggregate score that Milan has, but we don't know what happens when football always gives surprises, whereas on the other hand, after Roma got a new coach, performance has improved stronger now, which could make it more difficult for Milan to score in large quantities.

My hope is that this time Milan can remain consistent and careful with the strategy that De Rossi has, even though he is not an experienced coach, but his experience in football can create a strategy that can bring change to Roma.
Even though what we are talking about and predicting at the moment there are still no guarantees, our belief will probably come true when Milan will successfully get rid of Roma.

I think this match is quite balanced, it's just that I agree Benfica are a little more favored, especially in this first leg because they will play as hosts. They can use their status as hosts to win this match, so that when they do the second leg they can be a little more comfortable because they only need to maintain their advantage. I'm not making either of them favorites in the Europa League this season, although they have a chance, but their chances will not be greater than the teams that are now widely favored.
I want to see what Benfica can do in the first leg, because they have the advantage as I said before. But they also still have to be wary of Marseille who also come not to lose. Marseille must have come with at least a draw which will give them an advantage in the second leg. No team can be underestimated, especially they will do 2 matches that could be a surprise display from each team. Both Benfica and Marseille must be able to perform well if they still want to be in the Europa League for the next round.

Xabi needs to make it as his primary concern. It was almost a loss against qarabag, but I have to admit that qarabag played exceptionally well in this game and i was not even expecting qarabag was almost beat leverkusen away. I believe Xabi is fully aware of this, and we will see how Leverkusen addresses the issues with its defensive line in the coming games. I believe that Leverkusen is on a different level than West Ham. The only main problem if leverkusen must be carefully to face westham's attackers.
Glad to see Leverkusen had an easy opponent, and there will be no hard game against West Ham because they are still in bad shape. Leverkusen will take advantage of playing at home against West Ham United. I believe this will be an excellent opportunity for Leverkusen to secure a strong aggregate against West Ham to make the second leg much easier to be passed by leverkusen.
If Leverkusen can beat West Ham by more than three goals in aggregate, that will be enough to destroy West Ham's mentality in the second leg. I was wondering if Leverkusen would face Liverpool in this round, but that is not going to happen.
It also demonstrates how fortunate Leverlusen is to face a weak opponent such as West Ham, who was also performing poorly in the EPL. West Ham are no match for Leverkusen, and the public was well aware of this.

I agree with you that Milan is more superior than Roma, and that is the same reason why I believe that Milan is the favorite in this match. I will say the match will end up the way it use to end in Seria A, which the string side will win, because these two clubs are from the same league so they are used to playing one another, and they know who is the superior to the other.

Assuming they are from different leagues, then it might be that one will not be able to predict the game right. Roma will not be able to win Milan and qualify to the semifinals, because they don't have the players to do the job. Milan has slowly remained consistent which took them to the second position on their league, and that shows that they are in form.

Well, that means we are jointly speculating regarding the match between these two teams. yeah, like you said. in fact, currently we are talking based on opinions and assumptions alone. the reason is, the match has not been held at all. so, currently we are just guessing and predicting how the match will go using various references that we use as references. as I said in the previous post, also as we mutually agreed. in fact, AC Milan is more favored by bettors and is favored by bookies. we can refer to the temporary odds, Milan with @2.09 and AS Roma with @3.60. It's clear, isn't it, there are differences based on betting exchanges. however, it seems that the bookies are giving quite decent odds on AC Milan. I interpret it from my own point of view, if Roma also has a chance to overthrow AC Milan. the difference is, Milan plays at the San Siro, their home ground. meanwhile, AS Roma was handled by a new coach who incidentally Roma lost when they hosted the match against Inter Milan. however, in the 13 matches that De Rossi handled AS Roma in various competitions, they were able to win 9 of them, 2 draws and 1 loss. a little better, even though the coach had many doubts. at the very least, currently Roma is in 5th place in Serie A. If Bologna loses the next match, while Roma wins the match, Roma will shift Bologna's ranking which is ranked 4th in Serie A. this is very important, Roma also wants to finish in top four to qualify for the Champions League. no doubt like AC Milan as you said, Roma is also the same. De Rossi also wants the same thing, even though his opposing team is far more favourite. just like the match against Feyenoord, but Roma was able to qualify for the next phase. so, to be sure, let's just wait for the meeting between these two teams to be held.

If I look at the draw results, I am quite curious about the results of the match between Benfica vs Marseille. Actually overall Benfica is still better but for now I think it will be a fairly even match. I'm sure Benfica won't be able to win easily against Marseille because this French team has found their game a little better. Having experienced a decline since the start of the season and changing coaches has finally made Marseille find its true form and in front of Benfica, I think they will put up fierce resistance.

The first leg of the match took place at Benfica's home ground and as hosts, the Portuguese team deserves to be favored and if they can win with a big score, it is likely that they will have no trouble visiting Marseille in the second leg. On the other hand, if Marseille can hold on to a draw in the first leg, they have a big chance of getting rid of Benfica in the quarterfinals. This is just my opinion, what do you think about this match going forward?

West Ham cannot be underestimated. Even though they didn't have good results in the Premier League, in the European League I think West Ham should be wary of. But Leverkusen is of course much more reliable if they are in top form. We must remember that Bayern Munich even suffered defeat this season by Leverkusen in the Bundesliga. And this is all a sign of how strong Leverkusen is, who currently tops the Bundesliga. So West Ham may be the one who has to be prepared for every attack launched by Leverkusen which seems very scary this season. But one gap that Leverkusen currently has is in their back position. Leverkusen concede too easily and that is their weak point. And West Ham must be able to take advantage of that.

I don't want to believe that Roma will do much better than AC Milan would in their next fixture, in as much as I know that Roma has been posing to be in a good form recently with some productive results I see AC Milan to be one of those big teams that will get Roma to performing poorly because they appear like they don't match in strength not at all, Roma has always won against mediocre teams in recant time and has lost to big and tough teams so it's possible they don't win AC Milan.

I'm hoping that AC Milan puts in their very best in this Europa, since they couldn't make it at the champions league it's very possible they will be able to get it right in the Europa a s lucky enough they haven't been given tough teams who will cause them much difficulty trying to win them or getting pass unto the next level of the game but then I think at this point even Roma understand what's at stake and would want to put out their very best so AC Milan would just have to make sure they win or nothing, a draw isn't even ideal a win should be all they should get.

If AC Milan gets a win in the first leg, it's a heads up for them to be sure they can stay ahead in this ga.e for the next meet and probably by then even a draw wouldn't do much harm to them as they will still qualify pass this stage regardless so it will be much safer and better if they make sure to utilize this chance we'll enough and get the first win and by the next meeting they will be at liberty to just get a win or draw.

Bayer Leverkusen is indeed a team that is predicted to still advance to the semifinals and even the final of the European League, but seeing how they conceded four goals to Qarabag and also conceded two goals to Freiburg in the Bundesliga match yesterday, Bayer Leverkusen must be wary of signs of decline in their defense, and West Ham Even though they are not a strong team like Bayer Leverkusen, their game which is quite aggressive is very likely to be troublesome for Bayer and if the first match Bayer doesn't win with a big goal margin then they might face difficulties in the second match because West Ham is still not a team that can be underestimated and they could provide a surprise if Bayer is not alert to it.

everyone will not think you are underestimating Atalanta and indeed Liverpool in terms of depth of team performance is much better than Atalanta and on the one hand we can all see that Liverpool has a scoring machine that no one can block while Atalanta does not have any mainstay in terms of players and we can also compare in terms of cooperation the Liverpool players are much more solid even though they have Salah as the scorer but Klopp managed to form a more perfect team that can always score and it doesn't even have to be an attacking player who will score as long as whoever the player has the opportunity to score scoring must be done and we often see that defenders sometimes score and this is a more perfect line up.

In comparison, Atalanta only relies on Scamacca and this player does not have the quality of talent that Liverpool players have and it is clear that Atalanta will not be able to do anything except try to survive to get a draw in the second leg and try to find luck from the penalty round.