West Ham crashes out of Europa League with another loss to Astra

For the second straight campaign, West Ham's hopes of reaching the Europa League have been dashed by Astra Giurgiu.

The Hammers lost 1-0 to the Romanian side in Thursday's second leg play-off match, succumbing to a 2-1 loss on aggregate as Slaven Bilic's men were left to rue another missed opportunity.

Bilic's side had left the tie in the balance after a disappointing 1-1 away draw a week ago and that result came back to haunt, as Astra took the lead on the stroke of half-time through Filipe Teixeira.

West Ham was guilty of slack defending as Daniel Niculae found Teixeira free in the box with the striker rolling the ball past Darren Randolph.

That was enough to hand the Romanians a 2-1 victory on aggregate, mirroring Astra's 4-3 win over the Hammers at the same stage of Europe's second-tier club competition last season.