West Ham United vs Gent

West Ham United will be looking to capitalize on a hard-fought 1-1 draw in the first leg of their Europa Conference League quarter-final tie versus Gent when the two sides lock horns in the return fixture at the London Stadium.

A few days after the closely-contested first-leg stalemate in Belgium, West Ham United came from a 2-0 deficit to hold Premier League leaders Arsenal to a goal-glutted 2-2 home draw at the weekend, making it three straight competitive games without losing (W1, D2). As huge betting favorites to reach the semi-finals, David Moyes’ men come into proceedings having lost just one of their last eight competitive home outings (W4, D3). The ‘Hammers’ boast an impressive 87.5% unbeaten ratio across their eight previous European encounters against Belgian opposition (W4, D3), while they’ve never lost at home in such fixtures (W2, D1). Speaking of West Ham’s home solidity, they’ve won all five Europa Conference League home matches this term, keeping clean sheets in the last two.

In the meantime, visiting Gent followed last week’s first-leg stalemate with an identical 1-1 home draw against domestic rivals Mechelen at the weekend, stretching their unbeaten run in all competitions to nine games (W5, D4). Before being held at Mechelen, Gent had won three consecutive away outings via multi-goal margins, netting 4+ goals on each occasion, so confidence should be sky-high in the visiting camp. That said, the Belgians have picked up just one win in their last seven away matches in the Europa Conference League (D2, L4), courtesy of a 4-1 demolition of Istanbul Basaksehir in the previous knockout round. What’s even more comforting for the visitors is that they’ve only lost one of their five historic meetings with English clubs in European football (W1, D3).