West Ham United suffered their first Europa League defeat of the season at home to Dinamo Zagreb on Thursday evening.
The visitors, who secured their own passage into the playoff round, took an early lead through Mislav Orsic’s early stunner and rarely looked troubled in what was a fairly uneventful game.
Still, the night was not about the result, or in the fact the present at all.
Indeed, there were five debuts for a raft of the next generation of West Ham players and they largely acquitted themselves well, albeit without creating much in the way of chances.
David Moyes has built up so much goodwill this season and his team’s position in the competition is so secure that the result did not really matter at all.
On this evidence and, granted, it’s a small sample size, there’s plenty to be excited about going forward even away from first-team matters.
