SPURS SLAY HAPLESS HAMMERS
Moyes’ boys beaten by Soucek own goal and Harry’s clincher
HARRY KANE lay flat on his front, spread-eagled, panting. He rolled on his back, still breathing heavily. Strikers always insist it doesn’t matter who scores. This little vignette suggested otherwise.
It was 2019 when Kane last scored for Tottenham. Injury, and Covid-19, intervened and he looked strangely subdued against Manchester United last week.
Nothing like a fixture against West Ham to lift the funk, though, and so it proved. Tottenham were already leading when, in the 82nd minute, Kane caught West Ham on the hunt for an equaliser.
The counter-attack moved swiftly through the gears, culminating in a lovely Son Heung-min pass that sent Kane through from just inside the West Ham half, with a yard on his pursuers. He doesn’t miss those, but the relief was palpable. Jose Mourinho predicted Kane would score, but that might have been as much down to what he knew about his opponents, as what he knows of his man.
Just as good teams find ways to win, bad teams find ways to lose. Tottenham are not particularly good at the moment, but West Ham are most certainly bad. They have restarted as they finished, conspiring against themselves as they creep ever nearer the precipice.
Having kept Tottenham at bay for much of this match, they succumbed to a 64th-minute goal that owed much to random misfortune and little to the best laid plans of Mourinho.
Granted, it was a good corner from Giovani Lo Celso on the right, swinging in and attacked by Davinson Sanchez and Lucas Moura simultaneously. One of them got a slight touch — some claimed handball, but it was not clear or obvious — which deflected the ball onto Tomas Soucek. He was a January transfer window, bought to keep West Ham up. Ah well. The ball struck his shin and ricocheted past Lukasz Fabianski. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
So Tottenham gain the ground needed to keep them in touch with the battle for Champions League football, West Ham lose further ground on those scrambling to avoid calamity. Before Kane scored, Jarrod Bowen hit a post, but the end result did not flatter Tottenham. West Ham do not appear to know where their next goal is coming from, let alone their next win. It’s Chelsea next.
It is fair to say that much of what we have seen from Project Restart so far, most fans would cheerfully exchange for a live feed of the Rebekah Vardy-Colleen Rooney trial, when it eventually happens.
Maybe Eddie Hearn would care to promote that, which would save him the trouble of making deals with gangsters and dubious repressive regimes.
To make matters worse, amid this sea of drab encounters, there is always the possibility that when someone actually scores, a chap in Stockley Park will spring into action and search for a reason to disallow it. Pretty much what happened here in the first half.
To be fair, this wasn’t actually the worst match in living memory. That was Leicester versus Brighton at 6pm.
There was the odd chance and West Ham did at least attempt to achieve the point of the game, which was an upgrade on Saturday’s performance against Wolves. Yet the best moment of play was that which led to a Tottenham goal in the final minute of the first half, so it was a pity it was ruled out for a legitimate, but narrow, offside.
Giovani Lo Celso cut a lovely diagonal ball from a congested area outside the penalty area to Son on the left, inexplicably given room by Ryan Fredericks.
Jeremy Ngakia has been preferred in that position of late, but he is refusing to sign a new contract and wishes to leave this summer. That he didn’t even feature on the substitutes bench suggested club and player may have finally reached an impasse. It is a pity. His instincts seem keener than Fredericks who, trying to make up too much ground, ended up on his backside as Son sped past. He shot inside the near post, which startled Fabianski and gave Tottenham the lead they just about deserved. Not for long, though. The dreaded VAR check revealed Son had a foot in an offside position. And yes, we all know, you are either offside or you’re not. So it was the correct decision.
Equally, the ball is either over the line or it’s not, and that didn’t seem to trouble VAR half as much at Villa Park last week. Might be an idea to clear up the absolute travesties before we embark on calls that cannot be instantly identified with the naked eye.
Mourinho came out swinging this week in defence of his record with natural goalscorers, not least Kane. And this was an improvement on his performance against Manchester United.
Kane had his first shot of the restart — in the 27th minute, easily collected by Fabianski — and a header from a Serge Aurier cross that went close soon after.
Just as impressively, he played a lovely ball for Dele Alli after 28 minutes, which was thwarted only by a strong challenge from Issa Diop, sending the ball flying at some speed towards Fabianski, who took it gamely on his chest, just in case. At other times, West
Ham’s goalkeeper looked tense. He made a terrible hash of a Son cross after three minutes, almost spilling it into his own net; and he was nearly beaten by a deflection from an Eric Dier shot, as Tottenham forced a succession of corners.
The save of the half was his too, however — in the 22nd minute from Lucas Moura, 30 yards out, a real corker of a shot. Moura looked lively, as he often does, and came close again in additional time, set up by a cross from Ben Davies.
As for West Ham, the absence of firepower is troubling.
Pablo Fornals had the best chance against Wolves — he panicked horribly and it was wasted — and the same was true here.
Bowen hit a cross from the right and Fornals, just outside the sixyard box but with space, screwed it well wide. If he can’t keep his cool, why is he up there?
It sums up West Ham’s weakness
that Mark Noble was often the most advanced midfielder in support of Michail Antonio, although he is not a natural in the penalty box either.
In the second minute Antonio held up an Aaron Cresswell cross for Noble, only for him to run it tamely into the hands of Hugo Lloris.