BALE REFUSED
Tottenham Hotspur 3 West Ham 3
Before this game I am clinging at hopes. It is Spurs, after all. So for the good news. Bale is not starting. But he is on the bench. The only reason this is worth a comment is that whenever there is a story behind a high profile player’s arrival at a club, especially after seven years, you can bet his first game will be against… yes, so it bears a mention.
Tomas Soucek has a shot at goal after sixteen seconds, but from the clearance Son easily beats Balbuena and moments later the ball is in the back of the net. It’s beyond feeble from West Ham. Son now draws level with Calvert-Lewin at the top of this season’s Premier League goal scorers with seven goals. Cresswell drags a little pride back into the opening chapter of the game with a well-taken free-kick on five minutes which flies just a whisker beyond Lloris’ right hand post, but Spurs have a second on eight minutes after Kane nutmegs Declan Rice and then hammers the ball past the momentarily unsighted Fabianski. Kane heads home his second and Spurs’ third after a brilliant cross from Rodriguez. I note that Tottenham have had three efforts on goal to West Ham’s four. Perhaps Moyes should consider a return to managing from his sick bed. We are three goals down after just fifteen minutes.
Fornals brings the ball out from defence and I realise that’s the first time I’ve seen him touch the ball after twenty whole minutes, but three minutes later he is wide on the left hitting a decent effort at Lloris that the Spurs’ keeper fields well. You know from experience with this kind of away performance from West Ham that even with more than an hour left, it is now just a matter of damage limitation. Carlton Cole might point to Scott Parker’s inspirational half-time pep talk with Hammers 3-0 down at the Hawthorns in a match that finished 3-3, but that’s not happening today.
Højbjerg nips away at Bowen’s ankles for the second time in a minute and gives a free kick away, which West Ham waste. They are having a lot of the game for a side that were 3-0 down after 16 minutes, but at the other end Son steals in on the blindside and Fabianski makes a breathtaking save. Antonio looks a little heavy in the stride as he did in the Newcastle game and you realise how important it is for West Ham that he plays well; he leads the line. Spurs are still giving free kicks away and a late one comes from Aurier in a promising position, but Hammers cannot fashion anything from it. Is it lunacy at half-time to say they played okay apart from conceding those three early goals?
If you’re a West Ham ‘fan’ and let’s face it, why else would you be reading this, you will have already experienced many moments of despair and head-shaking over the years, and no doubt that’s where you are now. The false dawns are the hardest to take. An unexpectedly brilliant win, sometimes followed by a second, should never fool you. The crushing away defeat is never that far away. The ball drops obligingly for Soucek early in the second half, but his acrobatic twist in mid air disappointingly makes no contact with the ball, and Masuaku blazes the loose ball over in frustration. Then Antonio finds Fornals at the far post but he arrives too soon and heads over. The truth is that there are four or five players out there having mediocre games, and no team can carry that many low level performances and not get hammered. Then you see the corner count: 5-0 to West Ham, and you start thinking… But no, it’s not happening. Get real.
Fornals is making more and more headway in the game with his passing and control on the ball and he now finds Bowen wide in plenty of space, but Soucek’s header at the end of it is blocked. A long throw by Masuaku is thumped away by Alderweireld. It’s all West Ham for now. A rare Spurs’ attack sees Fabianski brilliantly deny Kane his hat-trick. That would have been hard to take. West Ham are playing some neat tippety tappety football… but that’s all it is. Easy on the eye, but with a heavy bar bill still to pay. And of course here comes Gareth Bale. All I can remember from him is that last minute winning goal at Upton Park and that irritating tendency by start all post-match interviews with a three second high-pitched ‘errrrr’ followed by a lame pile of pointless platitudes. Yep, let the feet do the talking.
West Ham respond from the sub’s bench with Manuel Lanzini, a player who once took Liverpool apart at Anfield. Since coming back from his long injury, Lanzini has not delivered the same performances, sadly. But never say never. Just fifteen more minutes looking at that score line and I can cook myself some tea. Antonio off for Yah Mo B There. Kane hits the post with Fabianski beaten and a ‘perfect hat-trick’ in the offing. My first real moment of pleasure in the game to see him denied. That’s another thing following this team gives you: the propensity for meanness where the other team are concerned.
Balbuena then heads neatly home from Cresswell’s free kick in the 82nd minute to make up for his mistake at the other end of the game. Then Foucal’s cross is turned past Lloris by Sánchez to reduce Spurs’ lead further. Five minutes to find an equaliser… now that was unexpected. Snodgrass comes on for the last five minutes… Kevin Nolan furiously waves an iPad with some hurriedly typed plans on it at him as if they might yield a result… Bale, meanwhile, just a handful of minutes after coming on eases himself past Ogbonna with just Fabianski to beat after a brilliant run, but flounders with a tame, wide finish.
In the fourth minute of injury time, Cresswell has a free kick wide on the left, cleverly won by Snodgrass from Aurier. He has to take it a second time as the referee isn’t ready. When he pumps it in again, Kane is back to head out, Harry Winks takes it off Snodgrass’ toes and the loose ball runs to Lanzini who hits an absolute screamer into the top corner of the net. Lloris has actually got a hand to it, but was never keeping that out.
Spurs can’t even fashion two passes after the kick off before the referee blows for full time. A proper two-ended game, that. I suddenly remember Obiang’s screamer, also against Spurs, at Wembley, in another draw – that one was 1-1 in early 2018. Lightning striking twice, and then twice again. (Or is that three times?)
Well, well. We go eighth.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha…
I need to lie down.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 4 Fabian Balbuena, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 41 Declan Rice (c), 28 Tomas Soucek, 26 Arthur Masuaku, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 30 Michael Antonio, 18 Pablo Fornals
Substitutes: 10 Manuel Lanzini, 11 Robert Snodgrass, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko
Scorers: 4 Fabian Balbuena, Own Goal, 10 Manuel Lanzini
