West Ham United London (Away) 04.05.2025

The first ten minutes saw the home team moving the ball better, but both sides were exhibiting why they occupy the two positions above the relegation zone, so there wasn’t too much to write home about.  14 minutes in, after having been closed down earlier, Kilman played the ball straight at Mathys Tel twice and the French striker laid the ball square in front of Richarlison and it ran to Wilson Odobert behind him.  Being stood alone near the penalty spot, he produced a calm finish after taking a touch to side-foot it past an exposed Areola to give Tottenham a 1-0 lead.  The home players and crowd were howling for handball against Tel, but after a review the goal stood.

Handball was the word of the day among the Irons fans with claims against Bissouma and Davies in the box, neither of which had much merit and they were also getting wound up by free-kicks being given against them for fouls, which is what the laws require.  The one that involved Davies came when Spurs allowed Wan-Bissaka space on the right and his ball in brushed Ben’s body and the lesson was not learned.  After Soucek committed another clear foul (his third of the game), this time on Sarr, Todibo blocked off Tel, as he jinked past him and then showed dissent to the decision, but Mathys could only balloon the ball over the bar from the free-kick on the left corner of the box.

Nobody prevented Wan-Bissaka’s run and his pass found Bowen to slide the ball through Vicario’s legs from a tight angle on the right to level the score with Davies stepping up to try and catch the Irons captain offside, but that didn’t work and handed them a great opportunity that wasn’t refused.

Bowen tried to run through Kulusevski and when that free-kick was cleared, Kudus made a back for Spence to crash over him when the Ghanaian having just put a high boot in on Danso.  Djed Spence sent in a low ball to the bear post for Richarlison, but his first time effort from ahead of the near post went too high and then Spurs broke when Pacqueta’s loose pass handed possession to Spurs and Tel’s intelligent ball inside the full back put Richarlison into the box, looking to find Odobert at the far post when maybe he would have been better to have a shot as Wilson didn’t read the pass and the chance went away.

Djed made a fine interception as Wan-Bissaka looked to play another ball into the box from the right.  As that happened, Fullkrug elbowed Kevin Danso in the face in the box off the ball, but nothing was done by the referee, who also failed to book Pacqueta for diving when Tel took the ball away from him in the Spurs area.  For all the honesty Fullkrug displayed last week with his comments about his team-mates, they could also be applied to him on his performance today.  

Half-time brought some less than banging tunes from DJ Nick The Butcher.  Not sure if that was his name or an instruction to steal a purveyor of meat.

The first chance of the half came Tottenham’s way, when Pape Matar Sarr ran forward with the ball and slid a pass inside Todibo for Mathys Tel to get onto, but with Richarlison well placed, he shot straight at the keeper.  Kulsevski put a good ball in from the left, but Richi couldn’t control his effort as Kilman closed him down, with the ball going high over the bar and Kudus cross found Bowen who fired just wide of the far post from a narrow angle.  Pacqueta handed the ball to Spurs and Odobert swept it left for Tel, who took it on and looked for Richarlison at the far post, but it was cut out by Cresswell for a corner that came out to Bissouma to fire a trademark shot way over the bar.

When Kilman went through the back of Richarlison in the 65th minute on halfway, there was nothing more than a talking to for what seemed like too many similar fouls without a booking when Ben Davies saw yellow for just one.  That was nothing as Bowen then punched Yves in the side of the head with nothing given !  And I thought VAR had cameras everywhere.  When Kilman took Richarlison down once more with nothing done by the ref other than giving a free-kick, Ange decided to save him any further punishment and brought on Mikey Moore in his place.  The youngster’s first touch turned a ball tight to the line inside for Spence, who raced past Soucek, who couldn’t even succeed in pulling him back by his shirt, with the left back’s ball into the middle coming off the hapless Kilman, not knowing where it was going but fortunate to see it go for a corner, when it could easily have deflected past his keeper.  Mikey whipped the corner in at the near post, but there was a bit too much whip on it as it went into the outside of the side-netting.  Fullkrug headed Kudus cross just wide as the home side broke, but when Tottenham tried to move forward, Mikey Moore was callously brought down by Pacqueta to earn a yellow card.  I bet that wasn’t expected.  The Brazilian then tried to get sent off by fuming at the referee, having to be calmed down before he managed to talk himself into an early bath.

Soucek then knocked the ball away with his hand as Moore tried to take it past him, only to then throw the ball away.  Oliver was certainly being lenient on the home players, with a few more who should have been noted down on his yellow card.  Spurs looked sharper with the introduction of Moore and after playing the ball across the pitch from left to right and then back again, it was left to Pape to take on a shot that dipped over the bar just too late, with Areola struggling to get to it.  

After a quadruple change Ward-Prowse swung in a free-kick but as Bowen met it with a header, Vicario threw himself to his left to push the ball away with a fine reflex save.  There was some sort of sick irony when Mathys Tel was booked for running into Kilman, but Odobert’s foul on Soler handed the Irons a free-kick in the last of the 90 minutes and with Ward-Prowse – the free-kick expert – lining it up, it was a nervy moment, but the former SCBC midfielder bent it a couple of feet wide of Vicario’s right hand post from 25 yards.

And that was that.  A fairly low-key London derby and with neither team having had a great season and neither having anything to play for in the match, it was a point apiece, which is probably what they would have settled for before kick-off.  You could say that the teams shared the dishonours, such was the paucity of quality on show.  Eight changes to the Spurs side from Thursday’s Europa League match to protect players from injury for the second leg in four days time meant that it was a team that were thrown in with little playing time together.  

The TV companies made the right decision to swerve this dull and tepid match, with the home team unable to take any sort of advantage of a Spurs team that lacked many regular starters.  In the usual fashion, the seats among the Irons fans were deserted long before the end and the boos that rang out had a familiar ring to them from matches at the THS this season with this match effectively only having riding on it who would be the team who sits just above the bottom three.  At least Tottenham had some sort of excuse, with a European semi-final coming up, but the only passion shown by the Spammers was when Pacqueta burst into tears when he got booked. 

Tottenham’s ragged passing out from the back caused more problems than West Ham created, with one instance in the first half when Vicario was wide to the left of his goal played a ball straight to Soucek 25 yards out, with luck on the keeper’s side that the Czech is not very good and literally passed the ball back to him in a feeble attempt to score.  Admittedly, it was not a clever pass back to Vic, bouncing high and not easy to make much of, but if this tactic is to work players have to make themselves available to receive it from the goalie. 

I got distracted from the play when I was debating whether the Irons have the smallest ball-boys in football or whether it was the fact that they were so far away that the perspective just makes it look like that.  That was what it came to in a game that did little to hold the attention for most of the 98 minutes.

• Ben Davies made his 300th start in matches for Spurs.