The game was deep into eight minutes of added time when Craig Dawson won a towering header, tore into a 50-50 challenge and stretched every sinew in his body to crash through one more Lyon player for good measure. It summed up West Ham’s resilience during a draining second half and, once his anger at Felix Zwayer’s officiating has faded, David Moyes will look back at his side’s efforts and conclude that their European dream is far from over.
There was no need to be glum given that West Ham could have collapsed after Aaron Cresswell was controversially sent off for fouling Moussa Dembélé just before half-time. The regrets mostly belonged to Lyon. They created little against 10 men and West Ham put their sense of injustice to good use, going ahead through Jarrod Bowen and fighting to hold on after Tanguy Ndombele equalised with 24 minutes left.
