West Ham were lucky to draw with Gent in their Europa Conference League quarter-final on Thursday night.
Danny Ings’ first half goal was cancelled out by a strike from Hugo Cuypers to tie the score at 1-1 heading into next week’s return leg at the London Stadium.
Set-pieces have proven a profitable avenue for Moyes’ side this season and they thought they had the opener six minutes before the break. Gent goalkeeper Davy Roef made a mess of a corner and dropped the ball onto Nayef Aguerd, who almost looked too embarrassed to celebrate.
The Moroccan, however, bundled the ball over the line with his hand and the goal was chalked off.
Though West Ham played without any sense of urgency for much of the first half, it was ironically some quick-thinking that led to their opener.
Jarrod Bowen screamed at Vladimir Coufal to take a quick throw-in high up in the Gent half and gleefully received the ball as Gent’s defenders congratulated each other for the initial clearance. After Bowen had managed to dig it out beneath his feet, he was able to cut across for Ings to score the simplest of tap-ins before the hosts could register what was going on.
The opening stages of the second half brought about a renewed energy in the visitors. Still, as has so often been the case this season, they ceded control and dropped deeper.
Were that trade-off make them more compact, it would perhaps be understandable. Gent, however, took confidence from their retreat and strung together the most fluid attack of the game to level the scores.
Alessio Castro-Montes and Gift Orban combined in a quick one-two, dragging the away side out of position before the former threaded a through ball between Angelo Obgonna’s legs, finding Cuypers.
The striker took one touch to evade Ben Jonson and fired a powerful finish past Alphonse Areola to restore parity.
As the game dragged on, West Ham looked increasingly ragged. Orban’s audacious overhead kick hit the bar before Tarik Tissoudali put wide after a thrilling counter-attack to let Moyes’ side off the hook somewhat.
There was still enough time for VAR to intervene and overturn the on-field decision to send Poland international Kamil Piatkowski off for a challenge on Lucas Paqueta but West Ham managed to hold on.
While they will be slight favourites back on home soil, improvements are needed.
