First Leg – West Ham vs AZ Alkmaar – Sport Grill

West Ham host AZ Alkmaar at London Stadium in the first leg of their UEFA Europa Conference League semi-final.

West Ham comfortably dispatched Gent to reach the semi-finals of an UEFA competition for the second consecutive season, whilst AZ Alkmaar needed penalties to beat Anderlecht after a 2-2 aggregate draw to reach this stage.

Team News

(Image credit: Ian Tuttle/Shutterstock)

West Ham have no fresh injury concerns to report after their domestic win against Manchester United, with manager, David Moyes likely to recall Alphonse Areola, Emerson Palmieri and Danny Ings if he opts to rotate his starting line-up.

Kurt Zouma (ankle) is unlikely to feature but Vladimir Coufal (hamstring) and Gianluca Scamacca (knee) remain absent.

AZ Alkmaar will be without left-back, Milos Kerkez due to picking up an one-match ban courtesy of his third booking of the campaign, which came in the second leg of their Quarter-Final against Anderlecht.

Sem Westerveld (knee), Bruno Martins Indi (thigh), Dani de Wit (foot) and Jesper Karlsson (leg) are all ruled out.

When is Kick-Off?

West Ham host AZ Alkmaar at London Stadium on Thursday 11 May in a 8pm BST kick-off, live on BT Sport 1 in the UK.

Stat Attack

• This is West Ham’s first-ever meeting against AZ Alkmaar in all UEFA competitions.
• AZ Alkmaar are visiting the Hammers’ London Stadium for the very first time in all competitions.
• West Ham are the eighth different English club to face AZ across all UEFA competitions, who have previously faced Ipswich, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Newcastle, Everton, Arsenal and Man Utd.
• David Moyes’ Hammers have conceded four goals in six home games in this season’s competition (W6), during which they’ve scored 17 goals.
• AZ have kept just one clean sheet in their five away matches in this season’s competition (W3, L2), which came in a 1-0 win against Dnipro-1 in September 2022.

Prediction

Whilst their league form has been rocky this season, West Ham’s European form has been far smoother especially at home where they’ve been firing on all cylinders with a series of performances more like the West Ham of last season.

David Moyes’ Hammers also can enter this match with renewed belief after their clinical performance to beat Man Utd last weekend, during which they displayed excellent attacking press and Lukasz Fabianski made excellent saves.

AZ Alkmaar meanwhile can’t be underestimated in terms of their attack but they do have defensive fragilities – evidenced by just two clean sheets away from home in this competition this season, but they have kept four consecutive clean sheets in their last four games in all competitions.

Kerkez though will be a loss at left-back given his form this season for AZ – having produced five goals, whilst their injury-related absentees could also impact them against a strong West Ham attack who will be up for this tie given their form.

West Ham will also be motivated by last season’s Europa League semi-final heartbreak and in front of their home crowd, I have a feeling that they will put this tie in their own hands with a strong performance to avoid chasing the tie in Alkmaar next week.

Prediction: West Ham 2-1 AZ Alkmaar