Europa League Draw: who Man Utd could meet

Pot One: Schalke, Zenit St Petersburg, Manchester United, Shakhtar Donetsk, Athletic Club, Olympiacos, Villarreal, Ajax, Inter, Fiorentina, Anderlecht, Viktoria Plzen.

Pot Two: AZ, Braga, Red Bull Salzburg, Roma, Fenerbahce, Sparta Prague, PAOK, Steaua Bucharest, Genk, APOEL, Standard Liege, Saint-Etienne.

Pot Three: Gent, Young Boys, Krasnodar, Rapid Wien, Slovan Liberec, Celta Vigo, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Feyenoord, Austria Wien, Mainz, Zurich, Southampton.

Pot Four: Panathinaikos, Sassuolo, Qarabag, Astana, Nice, Zorya Luhansk, Astra Giurgiu, Konyaspor, Osmanlispor, Gabala, Hapoel Be'er Sheva, Dundalk.

The format and how many teams there

48 teams will compete in the group stages and will be evenly split into 12 groups. The top two sides from each group will progress to the knockout stage.

The eight third-placed sides from the Champions League group stage, which took place yesterday, will also enter the competition in the round of 32.

Manchester United are in pot one, while Southampton find themselves in pot three.

West Ham would have been in the draw had they overcome Romanian minnows Astra Giurgiu in the play-offs - but they lost 1-0 at the London Stadium last night to end their European dreams.

Slaven Bilic "angry and frustrated" at Europa League exit

West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic has admitted that he is "angry and frustrated" at his side following their exit from the Europa League this evening.

The Hammers went into their second leg against Astra Giurgiu with a slight advantage having scored an away goal in the first-leg 1-1 draw, but Filipe Teixeira scored the only goal at the London Stadium to send the Romanian outfit through.

It is the second time in as many years that West Ham have been beaten by Astra in the playoff stage of Europa League qualifying, and Bilic admitted that his side did not deserve anything else.

"It's very frustrating. I would like to congratulate Astra as they deserved it. I told the guys before this was one of our most important games of the year because this was a final we needed to win. The disappointment is massive. We didn't play good in the first half or with desire as a team. We were second best," he told reporters.

"If you give their players time to turn and play, they can pass and move the ball. They took their chance on the counter-attack. We lost a goal after we turned the ball over in a very strange way. We had time after the goal to turn it around. I thought I need to change one or two players or the system but it wasn't about that, it was about the way we played.

"We created the sort of chances we had to score, but it wasn't that we missed chances, it was that we didn't play good. I'm angry and frustrated but I'm much more disappointed than anything else because we wanted to go through to the Europa League. I am not going to lose faith in the players after one game, but we are missing some our top quality players."

The Hammers will now turn their attention to an away match against Premier League leaders Manchester City on Sunday.

West Ham triumph in new home

Michail Antonio scored first PL goal at London Stadium as Hammers beat AFC Bournemouth 

 

West Ham United 1-0 AFC Bournemouth

Michail Antonio scored the first Premier League goal at the London Stadium as his close-range header gave West Ham United a 1-0 win over AFC Bournemouth.

The winger, deployed at right-back in the opening weekend defeat at Chelsea, capitalised on his advanced position in the absence of injured Dimitri Payet by heading in from a few yards out after Gokhan Tore’s cross over goalkeeper Artur Boruc.

AFC Bournemouth had been on course to hold firm in West Ham’s first home league match since moving to their spectacular new venue from the Boleyn Ground, but Harry Arter was sent off in the 78^th minute and West Ham took advantage to claim their first points of the season.

With Andy Carroll and Payet missing from West Ham’s matchday squad through injury, the hosts created few clear-cut chances in the first half.

Tore hit the wall with a free-kick just outside the area and Enner Valencia stung the fingertips of Boruc from an acute angle.

AFC Bournemouth started the second half quickly, with Hammers goalkeeper Adrian denying Adam Smith and brilliantly pushing a long-range Josh King strike over the crossbar.

The match opened up, with Tore volleying just wide of Boruc’s near post before Arter’s second yellow card, for hauling down Cheikhou Kouyate, with 12 minutes left.

West Ham capitalised with Antonio heading in, before Adrian’s fine reflex save from King’s volley denied the visitors an equaliser in stoppage time.

Substitute Jonathan Calleri fired wide after being put clean through on the counter-attack, with the Cherries piling players forward, but the victory was secured in front of over 57,000 fans at the London Stadium.

Premier League Man of the Match: Michail Antonio (West Ham)