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Key events
Half time! Tottenham 0-0 West Ham
Goalless at the break. While you are praying for more excitement in the second half, why not check out Jacob Steinberg’s interview with Thilo Kehrer?
45 min: Lenglet is OK to come back on. There is a hush in the crowd. There hasn’t been much to get excited about …
Kane provides a moment of class with a fine, curling, looping pass from around halfway, looking for the run of Richarlison. The Brazil forward runs on to it, past Fabianski, and tries a shot from an acute angle which is easily blocked, but it goes out for a corner.
Kulusevski drills the corner inn and Romero heads it narrowly over from a central position. Something to get excited about, at least a little bit.
44 min: Now it’s Lenglet who has hit the deck and needs a breather. He looks dazed and confused after falling heavily in a challenge a few moments ago.
41 min: Cristian Romero goes down injured and needs a bit of treatment. David Moyes and Kevin Nolan are pictured having a chat on the touchline. Nil-nil suits those lads just fine. They’d bite your hand off for a point.
As it stands, West Ham are 16th in the table, the point taking them above Everton and Bournemouth on goal difference.
37 min: There is literally nothing happening on the pitch. So the TV director focuses on West Ham’s Gianluca Scamacca, warming up on the touchline. Alan Smith, the co-commentator, fantasises about seeing some classy Italian attacking play. “He makes good runs,” says the former Arsenal striker, dreamily.
34 min: Emerson crunches into a tackle in midfield. It’s all disruption and destruction. There is precious little quality on show. Højbjerg hits a shot from 25 yards or so that Fabianski gobbles up with a regulation save.
31 min: This is actually pretty dire stuff now. The pace of the game has dropped. But wait! Skipp suddenly sprints down the Spurs left, and gets on the end of an angled ball in behind by Højbjerg that I think was intended for Kane. Skipp crosses low into a forest of West Ham defenders and the ball is duly cleared. Is this all building towards a deeply Moyesian smash-and-grab?
“Leggy Lenglet is a liability,” emails Niall. “Everything about his performance thus far is wrong (tonight and in his Spurs career to date). Get him off. Switch to 4-4-2 and bring on Lucas to run the wing.”
25 min: This is all well and good, but is someone going to score a goal? It doesn’t look very likely at the moment. The atmosphere sounds great, that is something, at least. Ogbonna climbs all over Kane as a ball is floated in towards the Spurs forward. As a result, the hosts win a free-kick about midway into the West Ham half.
Tottenham neglect to pump it into the mixer. Kane tries to play in Davies on the overlap but West Ham intercept. Royal then thumps a shot from the edge of the box, which is blocked. Next up, Kane floats a cross over to the far post. Again, West Ham clear. Kulusevski then lifts a terrible cross from the Spurs right which sails out for a goal kick. Defences on top. Specifically, West Ham’s defence on top.
21 min: I guess you could say West Ham’s “low block” is proving pretty resilient so far. Kane and Kulusevski are showing some nice touches and finding the odd yard of space, but they haven’t really fashioned a clear chance. The telly director settles on a lingering shot of Son, on the bench for Spurs.
“Greetings from a West Ham house Luke,” emails Ian. “Have to say that was the clearest handball [by Kehrer] since Terry McDermott in the 1981 League Cup final. Still – the look on Harry Kane’s face was funny.”
18 min: West Ham move forward in attack down the right wing. Emerson Royal does well to intercept a cross, and immediately tries to get Tottenham on the attack down their right. It’s breathless stuff, high tempo, very much in keeping with a derby.
“Greetings from the Atacama desert!” emails Alun Pugh.
“It’s baking hot here and at 2,200 metres you can feel the lack of oxygen, too.
“I’m sure Fifa would regard it as a great place to hold the World Cup.”
A little bit of politics, as Ben Elton used to say. Thanks for the photo Alun.
12 min: There is a VAR check for handball by West Ham’s Thilo Kehrer, who stoops down and blocks an attempted pass by Richarlison in the penalty area. That was very much a penalty last season, you fancy. Or the season before that. But West Ham get away with it.
11 min: Tottenham are pushing now. They’ve managed to get control of the game after a speedy start by West Ham. It’s all a bit frantic and unstructured, though.
9 min: Skipp is booked for a tasty challenge on Antonio, sliding into a 50-50. That was bordering on reckless.
8 min: Now Kane drops into a pocket of space just outside the area with Tottenham on the front foot. The ball is worked to Richarlison, in the area, who tries to turn and make space for a shot, but he’s swarmed by Hammers defenders and crowded out. This is the Premier League, buddy, not playing Switzerland at the World Cup!
6 min: Tottenham get their foot on the ball for the first time and move into the West Ham half with a bit of passing. Davies does well to dart inside his marker on the Spurs left. A ball is floated to the far post, where Kane has strayed offside, so he just lets the ball bounce harmlessly out.
4 min: It’s been a lively start from West Ham. Antonio, leading the line, holds the ball up with his back to goal on the edge of the box. A corner is the result, West Ham’s second of the match, after Soucek makes another dart on the right.
1 min: West Ham nearly score! Soucek runs on to a throw-in on the right, and hooks a really clever volleyed pass back over his shoulder, to the edge of the box. It’s a nol-look pass and more “into an area” that picking someone out deliberately, but Bowen is there, and he hits a low first-time shot that flies narrowly wide. That was soft from Spurs, and Antonio Conte has probably thrown his espresso cup at the TV already.
First half kick-off!
Allez!
David Jones on Sky said that yesterday was the first time since 2015 that the bottom three in the Premier League all won.
Spurs can nab a place in the top four today, of course. They beat Manchester City a couple of weeks ago, then went and lost to Leicester, the fools.
Some news bits from today, including the match report from His Majesty’s Manchester United v Leicester:
Oliver Skipp also had a chat with Sky Sports, saying they have been in contact with Conte all week, and also that the players also have lots of faith in the coaching team taking charge in the absence of Conte.
“I’d like to know thinking behind right wingback situation,” emails Yash Gupta. “Porro was selected for an away fixture when Romero was suspended, which resulted in collapse of that wing. Now … he’s on bench when Romero is back. Emerson Royal is wonderful but which player is Tottenham worried about in this West Ham team that Royal – a defensive wingback – is playing?”
I didn’t see the Milan game so can’t comment on that. I did see a social media banter clip of Tim Sherwood criticising Porro, though.
Stellini speaks: “We will have some [tactical] messages from Antonio, he is at home, ready to watch the game.”
Who decided to leave Son out? “Me, Antonio and Ryan Mason, we made this decision because we have a big squad – we want to use energy, and we played many games [recently] with Sonny … the reason we have a big squad is this.
“We need a reaction [after losing to Leicester]. We play at home. We need to play well from the start.”
The West Ham manager, David Moyes, speaks to Sky Sports: “Having Nayef [Aguerd] back is positive … Gianluca [Scamacca, on the bench] is just back in training … he won’t play for too long, I don’t think. Flynn Downes played very well at Man United, we just felt we needed something different today … we have to go and do our job today. We’ve been on a bit better run … today’s a test for us, but hopefully we can add to it.
Teams
The headline team news for the hosts is that Heung-min Son drops to the bench, with Richarlison starting in attack alongside Harry Kane. Following the Valentine’s Day Champions League defeat in Milan, Ivan Perisic and Pape Matar Sarr also drop to the bench, with Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Emerson Royal coming in.
For West Ham, Flynn Downes and Tomas Soucek come into the starting side with Saïd Benrahma benched and Lucas Paquetá out with a shoulder injury. Nayef Aguerd starts having been a fitness doubt with a groin injury. Cornet (calf) and Zouma (thigh) are sidelined.
Tottenham: Forster, Romero, Dier, Lenglet, Royal, Skipp, Højbjerg, Davies, Kulusevski, Richarlison, Kane. Substitutes: Austin, Tanganga, Sanchez, Pedro Porro, Sarr, Perisic, Danjuma, Lucas, Son.
West Ham: Fabianski, Coufal, Kehrer, Ogbonna, Aguerd, Emerson, Rice, Soucek, Downes, Bowen, Antonio. Substitutes: Areola, Johnson, Cresswell, Scamacca, Fornals, Lanzini, Ings, Benrahma, Casey.
Manchester United are 3-0 up against Leicester, inside the final 10 minutes at Old Trafford, mostly thanks to a double strike from goal machine Marcus Rashford. You can follow it here with Rob Smyth:
Preamble
The battle to avoid relegation is shaping up to be ludicrously, fiendishly, monstrously close. There are just eight points between 20th-placed Southampton and 12th-placed Crystal Palace. Saints, Bournemouth and Everton all won yesterday while Leicester, Wolves and Nottingham Forest have all – generally speaking – been on an upward curve. West Ham are 18th, with five wins and five draws from 22 games, a point ahead of Leeds and two above Saints. The Hammers cannot count on three other teams being worse: they need to get busy.
On the plus side, however, David Moyes is one of several managers in the bottom half who sounds genuinely upbeat about his team’s prospects. “There’s a lot of good things coming through,” he said on Friday. It’s his job to sound upbeat, sure, but the injury-list is shortening, and there are players starting to show glimpses of the form that helped them to a comfortable top-half finish last season.
Tottenham supporters, on the other hand, have spent recent days wondering if a takeover of their club is imminent, what that may mean for the future, and perhaps how they would feel about Qatari control. Antonio Conte remains absent, recuperating in Italy following gallbladder surgery, with Cristian Stellini proving a capable deputy. Newcastle’s defeat by Liverpool offers a chance to go fourth and you-know-what. Good things coming through? Let’s see what emerges.
Kick-off: 4.30pm
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