Aaron Cresswell has warned Lyon that they are stepping into West Ham's new fortress tonight.
A record-breaking home crowd pushed David Moyes's side to a historic last-16, second-leg win over Sevilla last month and tickets for this evening’s encounter, a first European quarter-final for 41 years, sold out in days.
After all the tumult of the move from Upton Park to Stratford and the 3-0 defeat to Burnley which saw fans storm the pitch four years ago, the London Stadium now feels like a very different place.
"Yeah it has [changed]," said West Ham defender Cresswell. "There is no beating around the bush, we've had some hard years there fighting relegation.
"I've been there at Upton Park where the atmosphere was frightening at times and it doesn't matter what team we're playing, we felt we were in a game.
"The progression the club's made over the last two years, it's kind of our fortress now and teams have found it hard to play there.
"Certainly the atmosphere against Sevilla was special, and hopefully we can replicate that again."
Hammers team-mate Michail Antonio added: "The Sevilla game just felt like they [the fans] were sucking the ball into their net.
"Sevilla are a very composed team, play great football. But you could see it. They couldn't play, couldn't deal with the pressure and the atmosphere. The fans were all over them and then we were because the fans were pushing us."
Despite being novices at this level, Lyon's struggles in Ligue 1 mean West Ham go into the tie as favourites to make the semi-finals, where a potential meeting with Barcelona awaits.
Cresswell has shrugged off the favourites tag but says West Ham go into the match full of confidence.
"We don't want to be looking from the outside at what odds we are or who's favourite," he said.
"We've got to concentrate on our game. We're in the quarter-finals of the Europa League, it's not going to be easy. At this stage teams don't get there by luck and we've certainly earned the right to get there. We've not got many players that have got this far but we are fully focused.
"I wouldn't say we feel established, but we've earned the right to be there over the last two seasons with how we've played in the Premier League. In the competition this year we've done fantastic, coming up against arguably the favourites [Sevilla], who've won it six times. To overcome that, we are going well."
