West Ham make light work of Freiburg - now begins the real business in Europe

Europa League Rd of 16 second leg

West Ham United (2) 5 Paqueta 9, Bowen 32, Cresswell 52, Kudus 77, 85

SC Freiburg (0) 0

Aggregate: 5-1

The phoney war is over. The real one is about to start in earnest.

Playing a mid-table German side who have no European pedigree to speak of always looked like a shoo-in for the quarter-finals - especially as the Hammers had beaten them home and away in the group stage of the competition.

This was a cake-walk, crowned by a sensational goal by Mohammed Kudus, who danced his way past four defenders with a run from the half way line and ended it with the calmest of finishes.

Before the end he had pinged in goal number five from the edge of the area - a feeble visitors' defence offering little resistance.

The last eight threatens to be a different matter to this early evening frolic for last season's Europa Conference winners. Just look at the teams who will be in tomorrow's draw in Nyon: Roma and Liverpool (probably), AC Milan, Marseille, Benfica and maybe Xabi Alonso's all-conquering Bayer Leverkusen.

It is a serious line-up and suggests no easy pathways can usher David Moyes' team to the Dublin final in May. But at least they will be in with a shout.

Despite their 1-0 win in the first leg, SC Freiburg, sitting eighth in the Bundesliga, held no real terrors or even an element of surprise.

All it took to get the ball rolling was a near post flick at a corner from Aaron Cresswell for Lucas Paqueta to have the simplest of far-post tap-ins. Tomas Soucek was the man getting that all-important flick.

No time for tension or doubt. It was a case of being up and running from the start.

Soon, Michail Antonio was outmuscling Manuel Gulde to get to the byline and pull the ball back for Kudus, who somehow skewed wide from six yards.

It hardly mattered. Jarrod Bowen shrugged off a weak defensive challenge outside the area before steadying himself and planting a low shot past keeper Noah Atubolu's left hand.

Last year's scorer of the winner in Prague finally had his first goal in the competition. He now has 18 in all for the Irons this season.

Soon after the restart and the tie was as good as over as Freiburg's generous defenders allowed Aaron Cresswell all the time in the world to latch onto a cross from the right and ping it into the far corner - ending a personal goal drought of nearly two years.

It was the defender's first goal since a home win against Everton in April 2022.

Then came the Kudus party-piece and follow up goal.

Those strikes and the manner of the victory added to the slightly surreal feel of a 5.45pm kick-off, which undoubtedly contributed to the sight of a lot of empty seats. It should be a different matter in the next round.

It was such a comfortable game for the Hammers that they were able to withdraw Paqueta with half an hour still to play, justifiably confident that the tie was in the bag. Moyes was no doubt already thinking ahead to Sunday's visit of Aston Villa.

The only downside of an otherwise problem-free day for the Irons was a booking for Edson Alvarez, which rules the midfielder out of the first leg in the next round.

Hammers: (4-2-3-1) Fabianski - Coufal, Mavrapanos, Zouma, Cresswell - Soucek, Alvarez (Phillips 86) - Bowen (Earthy 86), Paqueta (Ward-Prowse 62), Kudus (Ings 86) - Antonio (Johnson 79)

Freiburg: (4-1-4-1) Atubolu - Sildillia (Rohl 68), Ginter, Gulde (Kubler 62), Gunter - Hofler (Muslija 62) - Doan, Eggestein, Holer (Philipp 68), Grifo (Gregoritsch h/t) - Sallai