Antonio double and Rice run lead West Ham past Gent and into semi-finals

There have not been many times when David Moyes has been able to stand back and admire his team’s play from a position of comfort this season.

The complaints over West Ham’s football have been relentless and, given how much criticism has been thrown in his direction, it was easy to understand why Moyes was celebrating so passionately when Declan Rice put this Europa Conference League quarter-final out of Gent’s reach once and for all.

The sceptics, of course, will argue that smashing the fourth-best team in Belgium 5-2 on aggregate is par for the course. After all West Ham had two £30m players in central defence, an England regular dominating midfield and a £50m Brazil international having the time of his life in the No 10 position. There never really should have been any prospect of them losing to Gent, who had briefly hinted at an upset by shocking the London Stadium with an early goal from Hugo Cuypers.

Even so this was still a night when West Ham were entitled to forget about their relegation concerns and dream of winning their first piece of silverware since 1980. “I’m smiling,” Moyes said. “I don’t know if West Ham have had back-to-back European semi-finals. Great credit to the players. They’ve done a great job.”

Quietly, almost out of nowhere, the pressure on Moyes is subsiding. Defiance helped West Ham draw with Arsenal last Sunday, but this was stylish. Michail Antonio was in bulldozing form up front, scoring twice, and Lucas Paquetá oozed class. But Rice stole the show.

Fiorentina had to rely on late goals by Riccardo Sottil and Gaetano Castrovilli to reach the semi-finals after Lech Poznan threatened to overturn a 4-1 deficit in the second leg, with the visitors eventually winning 3-2 on the night in Florence.