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Anderlecht fans leave four officers injured throwing seats and flares into West Ham end

Anderlecht fans leave four officers injured after throwing seats and flares into the West Ham end in shocking scenes on Thursday.

Trouble broke out in Thursday’s Europa Conference League clash with West Ham at the London Stadium, the hosts winning 2-1.

Police were forced to intervene with violence breaking out in the South Stand, where away supporters are situated, and formed a line where the Anderlecht and West Ham supporters are separated.

Seats were torn out and a flare was spotted being thrown into the West Ham end as police struggled to get control of the situation.

One officer was reportedly struck on the head by a chair and another suffered a suspected broken wrist as they tried to take action.

A man was arrested for the alleged assault of an officer with a further 12 arrested for other offences during the game,.

Orange flames had engulfed parts of the stands during the tie as Anderlecht fans smuggled in flares and created an atmosphere you’ll likely see in other European stadiums, but is banned in English stadiums unless you seem to be a fan of a foreign club.

The scenes also spilled onto the pitch as one idiot ran on and attempted to take the ball off West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola.

The man was then apprehended by stewards and taken away from the scene but tried to break free.

Commenting on the flares and seat-throwing, an Anderlecht spokesman said: “The club will take it up with the fans and UEFA.

“We want to apologise to West Ham. We don’t tolerate it. We strongly condemn this behaviour.”

“It’s good for the press officer to stand up for the club,” Hammers boss David Moyes said.

“It’s a big credit to them as they’re a really good football club. They want to protect their own club and rightly so.

“Everyone’s focus is taken away when there’s crowd trouble in some way. I didn’t have any interest in it as it’s one of those things you don’t want to talk about. I don’t want to draw any more attention to it.”

Anderlecht boss Felice Mazzu said: “Seriously, I saw nothing so I cannot speak about this.”

Jarrod Bowen and Said Benrahma were on hand to seal West Ham’s place into the knockouts, but unfortunately it wasn’t what everyone was talking about with the marred scenes stealing the headlines.

Player ratings

West Ham: Areola (6), Coufal (7), Johnson (6), Ogbonna (6), Cresswell (7), Lanzini (7), Downes (6), Emerson Palmieri (7), Lucas Paqueta (7), Bowen (8), Benrahma (8).

Subs: Scamacca (6), Fornals (7), Dawson (6), Soucek (n/a), Rice (6).

Anderlecht: Van Crombrugge (6), Debast (6), Delcroix (6), N’Diaye (7), Murillo (6), Arnstad (6), Diawara (5), Verschaeren (5), Amuzu (5), Silva (6), Esposito (6).

Subs: Hoedt (n/a), Vertonghen (6), Sadiki (6), Stroeykens (6), Stassin (n/a).

Player of the match: Jarrod Bowen.

David Moyes did talk about how delighted he was to see his West Ham United side secure their progress to the UEFA Europa Conference League knockout stages.

Tonight was OK. I’m pleased we won and we did the job that was needed.

I thought we played well in good periods in the first half and I quite liked what we did, but we could have probably added another goal which would have made things a bit different.

I didn’t like the last 20 minutes. The changes we had to make probably didn’t work and weren’t so good tonight, whereas last week we brought three people on and it changed the game, so it shows how easily it can change.

I thought we played well in the first half when we pressed hard and we won the ball back.

I thought we scored two really good goals, one from the free-kick and the other from Jarrod, and I was just hoping we could have got a third, because I think a third would have made it a lot different.

Even in the opening part of the second half, I thought we were worthy, but we missed a couple of really good opportunities to get the third and put it to bed.

Then we found ourselves getting a bit sloppy and players running out of position and doing things they shouldn’t be doing in the last 15 or 20 minutes when we were really in control of the game, so we didn’t do as well in the last bit.

I do have a lot of respect for what Anderlecht are trying to do with blooding so many of their young players.

They’re a club which is always going to be a development club and they’ve had a great history in Europe over many years, as people will know.

It’s good. They’ve got some really good young players and Belgium itself as a country has developed a lot of good young players, so it’s always good to see clubs giving their players an opportunity.

Getting European football after Christmas is great and it was always the plan.

The plan is to win the group, but we were always saying that, first of all, let’s get European football after Christmas.

It looks like we’ve got a really big challenge with Silkeborg in the group, so we’ll have a tough game against them here and we’ve still got to go to Bucharest as well.

I think Angelo felt his hamstring. He felt it really early, in his first run.

He had a little bit of an incident with it in training a week or so ago, with some training we were doing, so obviously he’s someone who was coming back from really serious injury and we’re disappointed he had to miss a big part of tonight’s game. He’s making good progress, so let’s hope tonight’s injury isn’t too bad.

Daws had a dead leg anyway and I think he got another one tonight right in the same spot, so we took him off more as a precaution rather than anything else.

SEE MORE: Rangers fans attempt to storm Liverpool end as final whistle blows on 7-1 thrashing

This is what Twitter users had to say as Anderlecht fans leave four officers injured throwing seats and flares into the West Ham end…

@PrettyBubbles65: Crikey this Anderlecht fans are a bit ferrel aren’t they! Hope none of our lot were hurt!!😳

@pencechp: Glad I’m not an Anderlecht fan this morning. Eesh. Club needs to hand out a few dozen lifetime bans.

@armed_robber: @UEFA there better be some punishment headed Anderlecht’s way after the behavior of their fans tonight in London!

@andymasonirons: @UEFA If this was English club fans you would be all over this so let’s hope you do the right thing and punish them

@westhamtransfer: I can’t take a beer bought from M&S past the security but Anderlecht fans can bring in fucking burning flares. Cool.

@W_Bellew: No doubt about it that was all the Anderlecht fans tonight. They literally tore up our sets and thew them, and white hot flares, at our fans. We reacted but what the hell are we supposed to do, get battered and burned alive??

@Chris_Mills_: @LondonStadium too busy searching kids for bottle lids than stopping this shit in the away end as it may cause them to get angry. Well done @MPSWestHamUtdFC rolling out the red carpet for this scum really came home to roost today. Maybe just arrest the home fans though 🤷🏻‍♂️

@foreverboleyn__: I’ve just got home and thinking to myself how serious the trouble could have been had the club not installed that wall. That wall being installed without a doubt saves lives tonight. Had it not have been for that wall them Anderlecht fans would have thrown more chairs and flares.

@haggy83: The behaviour of the Anderlecht fans was absolutely disgusting. Somehow Uefa will blame west ham but anyone with a pair of eyes knows it was them. Women and children and your throwing chairs and flares at them.

@jimgreen66: If West Ham away fans had behaved like the Anderlecht fans last night, The Belgium riot Police would have steamed into them, the headlines would have been all about English Football hooligans, our Police stood there last night and let them do what they wanted.

@MichelleIrons10: The Anderlecht fans were a bit dicky last night wasn’t they? Soon shut up when Benny scored that beauty of a free kick!

 

@Hunty_S92: @LondonStadium @WestHam SERIOUS questions need to be asked to whoever allowed Anderlecht fans into the stadium with flares. People can’t even take a bottle of water in but you’ll allow flares!? 🤡

@WestHam_Central: 60 year old stewards think my bottle cap is a bomb yet you can just stroll in with a literal flare in the other end

@Perkinz9: This! And the police and stewards did fuck all when those Anderlecht fans were ripping seats out and throwing the seats and flares into the home end. Police do fuck all in this country, take some action and start battering them like the foreign police do to English fans!

@leeannewhu: anderlecht fans are truly vile, throwing seats at people is just weird and out of order

@HughMoore1997: Must be something in the water on the continent. Anderlecht, Frankfurt, doesn’t seem to matter, every club seems to have a section of unhinged fans who can’t control themselves. Glad we turned these idiots over, and twice for that matter

@woodstockiron: Met police let us down. Let them do what they wanted

@HammerStu76: How are they able to get these flares past the security checks in the first place? We can’t even keep the plastic lid on a bottle of water ffs. Absolute joke.

@Bull_Diggy: Lighting flares, then chucking them at us!!? 🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️😡 Absolute SCUM fans #RSCAnderlecht

@UptonPK: Fantastic work by security tonight! I can’t take a bottle of water into the ground unless I’m Belgian… then I can take a flare! It seemed to be kicking off for a good 20 minutes before the police arrived! Those stewards aren’t paid enough for that @whufc @MPSWestHamUtdFC #WHUAND

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