EARNING YOUR SPURS
West Ham 1 Tottenham Hotspur 0
Time was when this game might have fired up fear and trepidation at concerns about yet another home defeat to the auld sea anemone. These days it’s not even a Category A game. Spurs have been set back by a miserable midweek defeat in the Europe Conference League, the Almost Ran Cup or whatever they’re calling it. These days this is their cup final. My mind is for now more on the Manchester City cup game on Wednesday. The three points today would be useful though, and will push the home defeats against Manchester United and Brentford firmly into the past terrace of tents.
This afternoon Antonio is the powerful rested racehorse with an enviably successful record against the Spurs, and The Man Most Likely To. West Ham start well, building from the back, keeping possession, looking for a gap through which to play. If only Spurs could play this game on paper, they must be thinking, rather than on the London Stadium pitch.
Moura and Romero manage some neat touches in the first twenty minutes, but Spurs seem to have little else to combat Hammers’ slow measured build up. Son seems unable to control the ball with his normal finesse and Kane is the disappointed lethario, seemingly wanting the ball to control itself, which of course it cannot. Looks like he will remain a lifer under Daniel Levy, as no one wants to buy a sourpuss has-been. His England teammate Declan Rice, now in opposition, is proving embarrassingly stronger in the tackle and the passing. Moyes said at his midweek press conference that teams have now missed the chance to get Rice at the bargain basement price of £100m, the asking price being now more like £150m. On current form there are few who would argue with him…
One of the delights of the Hammers’ performance this afternoon is the form of Ben Johnson, filling in at right wing back in the absence of the injured Vladimir Coufal. He is reliable on and off the ball, and crosses well when the opportunities arise.
Spurs have their chances, a break that gives Son a view on goal, but Fabianski is well positioned to save the shot, as he is to tip over Kane’s header later in the first half. Despite what has to have been a serious telling off at the break, Spurs seem to have few ideas in the second half, resembling a bunch of decent players who met in the pub an hour before the game to plan tactics.
When it comes, the goal is an act of stunning simplicity. Fornals shot is finger tipped over by Hugo Lloris for a corner which Cresswell hits low into the danger zone and, sidestepping his marker Kane like a piece of dog poo on the pavement, Antonio sidefoots past Lloris. One-nil, as David Coleman would surely have responded.
The remaining twenty minutes of knockabout on the London Stadium pitch say more about Nuno’s forthcoming issues with his team than they do about David Moyes’ boys current nous to see out games from a winning position.
There were Hammers fans who raised an eyebrow at Antonio’s pre-season decision to requisition the number 9 shirt for 2021-22, rested since the departure of Andy Carroll but, after yet another winner against Spurs, he can now claim to have made it his own.
1 Lucasz Fabiański, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 4 Kurt Zouma, 31 Ben Johnson, 41 Declan Rice (c), 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 28 Tomas Souček,, 8 Pablo Fornals, 9 Michail Antonio, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 22 Saïd Benrahma
Substitutes: 10 Manuel Lanzini, 15 Craig Dawson
Goalscorer: Michail Antonio
