Leicester and Rangers do it the hard way, West Ham thump Lyon – Europa League and Europa Conference League hits and misses

The perfect away performance from West Ham

Ahead of any quarter-final second leg in Europe, there will be nerves. But perhaps the pressure was heightened a little given West Ham went into the game with five successive away defeats in all competitions, and made three changes to their defensive line-up from the first leg.

But it proved to be that there was little to be concerned about as West Ham produced the perfect away performance to secure their place in the Europa League’s final four.

Despite the defensive changes, West Ham were there at every juncture to stop a talented Lyon attack that includes Moussa Dembele, Houssem Aouar and Karl Toko Ekambi. Even when they were at their best inside the opening half an hour, the Hammers stood up to every task.

• Lyon 0-3 West Ham (1-4 on aggregate) – Match report
• How the teams lined up | Match stats
• Europa League fixtures | Results | Download the Sky Sports App

Perhaps one of Lyon’s errors was trying to use the ball aerially too often. West Ham have some tall players in their ranks and won most of those battles in the air, even without the presence of Kurt Zouma to boost them further.

At the other end, they took advantage of Lyon’s own defensive shortcomings to devastating effect – all three of the scorers were unmarked for their goals.

Craig Dawson was ahead of Dembele, Declan Rice had plenty of space at the top of the area to shape his shot and Jarrod Bowen’s run was not tracked, or not until it was too late by Castello Lukeba.