Gianluca Scamacca came off the bench to score the winning goal for West Ham against Anderlecht in Belgium
(Picture: BELGA/AFP via Getty Images)Before kick-off here at the Lotto Park in Belgium, the home crowd honoured former Anderlecht youth player Remco Evenepoel, fresh from his devastating breakaway victory at cycling’s Road World Championships in Australia last month.
By full-time, though, it was West Ham who had opened up clear daylight between them and their rivals at the top of this Europa Conference League group after making it a perfect three from three in the competition thanks to substitute Gianluca Scamacca’s late winner.
The Hammers made suitably hard work of theoretically their toughest group stage assignment, but Scamacca’s superbly-taken strike on 79 minutes - his fourth in five games in this competition - earned a 1-0 victory and means they are now five points clear at the top of Group B and firmly on course for knockout football in the New Year.
David Moyes eventually had to call upon star trio Declan Rice, Lucas Paqueta and Scamacca to turn the tide, with the game drifting towards a goalless draw after a lively first half. But he had begun the evening by handing out opportunities to the support cast, making nine changes to the side that had earned a vital three points against Wolves in the Premier League on Saturday.
Even so, his lineup was one full of players central to the successes of the past two seasons, testament to the depth that the summer’s £160million spending spree has provided and the increased levels of competition.
Michail Antonio is one of those long-serving players now facing a scrap for a shirt after Scamacca’s impressive start, and wasted one of several decent openings when blazing high and wide from Said Benrahma’s reverse. Benrahma will himself be lucky to find a spot on the flight home, let alone in the XI for Sunday’s visit of Fulham, after drawing Moyes’ ire when somehow lifting Jarrod Bowen’s cutback over a gaping goal shortly before the break.
Bowen was, along with Craig Dawson, one of two survivors from the weekend and while last season the winger might have been prominent on a list of players worth a rest amid such wholesale change, early this term he has looked devoid of form and rhythm.
Recent weeks, though, have brought encouraging signs, most notably Saturday’s sharp second against Wolves, and this was another display to suggest his best is not far away. The Englishman was a major first-half threat, though he ought to have left Antonio a sitter when pulling back behind the striker early on.
At the other end, Wolves loanee Fabio Silva was proving a nuisance and might have opened the scoring had his shot from the impressive Yari Verschaeren’s pass not struck a team-mate when goalbound.
That Benrahma and Antonio were two of the pair hauled off as Moyes went for the jugular 20 minutes from the end was little surprise and their replacements, Scamacca and Paqueta, combined to feed Flynn Downes almost immediately. This was just Downes’ second start following his summer move from Swansea, but an assured performance made light of suggestions he has found the step up from the Championship a tough one. The winner would have capped an excellent display, but on his left foot and with the ball bouncing awkwardly, he shanked wide.
Instead it fell to a rather more accomplished finisher to break the deadlock, Scamacca taking a touch and swivelling brilliantly to arrow into the far corner from Paqueta’s lifted pass, displaying the kind of killer instinct that Antonio, for all his strengths, has never possessed.
The Hammers still needed a magnificent late reflex stop from the largely unworked Alphonse Areola to deny Silva a leveller, but with clear road between them and the chasing back, only an implosion will now see Moyes’ men reeled in.
