Ahead of West Ham’s Europa League quarter-final match-up with Lyon, West Ham World takes a look at how good the opposition actually are.
With this being West Ham’s first-ever proper Europa League campaign, and the furthest the club have reached in Europe, there are many players within the squad that are inexperienced in this position.
However, David Moyes’ side is more than capable of overcoming this challenge, despite the tough opposition the clubface in the next round.
Lyon, who are known for being regulars in European football, finished their group unbeaten after winning five games and drawing one.
Despite their poor run of form in Ligue 1 this season, the seven-time French league champions and two-time Champions League semi-finalists, will be very difficult to overcome at this stage of the competition.
Currently, the French outfit are struggling in 10th in their league table, but managed to beat a strong Porto side in the previous stage to progress to the quarter-finals.
Players like Lucas Paqueta, Romain Faivre, Tanguy Ndombele and Moussa Dembele will be ones to watch, having excelled at times for Lyon this season.
Dembele, who has scored 11 goals already so far this season, will undoubtedly be a handful for the defence of West Ham – and David Moyes needs to be wary of what their attack is capable of.
This will definitely be a tough task for West Ham, but one that these players are very much able to overcome. As seen previously in the group stages and against Sevilla, the squad can perform at a very high level in Europe and when under pressure.
West Ham should definitely be able to utilise having great attacking players, and this match-up should be a great spectacle for all football fans when they face on Lyon Thursday.
