West Ham United vs Viborg

Underperforming West Ham United emark on their 2022/23 Europa Conference League campaign at the London Stadium as they meet Danish outsiders Viborg in the first leg of their must-win playoff tie.

Despite taking part in the Premier League top-four race at one point last season, West Ham United had to settle for a seventh-place finish. Moreover, David Moyes’ side suffered the 2021/22 Europa League semi-final heartbreak at the hands of Eintracht Frankfurt, which is why they head into proceedings keen to redeem themselves to the fans. Though they are overwhelming favourites here, the ‘Hammers’ have endured a poor start to the new Premier League season, losing both league matches without scoring. On top of that, West Ham’s ‘European qualifying jinx’ has seen them fail to pass through a European play-off round to advance to a tournament proper since the introduction of the group stages.

Meanwhile, Viborg’s first-ever foray into continental action comes as a courtesy of last season’s 7th-place finish in the Danish Superliga. An opportunity to play in European competition for the first time sounds somewhat unrealistic to Viborg supporters as their side ended a four-year absence of top-flight football only last season. Jacob Friis’ men have shown they mean business this term by thrashing the Faroe Islands minnows B36 Torshavn 5-1 on aggregate in the previous Europa Conference League qualifying round (3-0 H, 2-1 A). Indeed, they’ve won all four qualifying legs this season, with three of those triumphs yielding a clean sheet.