West Ham United London (Away) 13.09.2025

Thomas Frank rang the changes with Lucas Bergvall replacing Rodrigo Bentancur and Mathys Tel taking the place of Richarlison.  New signing Xavi Simons started as Brennan Johnson was dropped to the bench.

West Ham were making the game hectic at the start, with lots of closing down and getting stuck into tackles, lining up with a 3-2-4-1 formation, dropping Bowen deep leaving Paqueta up top.  The home team threw some crosses into the Tottenham box, but they were either dealt with by the defence or hit too long.  Predictably, Mohammed Kudus came in for a lot of booing, even when he was tackled and the ball ran past the defender for him to get beyond the Iron.

Dropping nine claret-shirted men behind the ball made it difficult to find an incisive pass through into the forwards, but West Ham took the ball forward through Kyle Walker-Peters and it was moved through Fernandes to Paqueta, who turned on it putting it wide of Guglielmo Vicario’s left-hand post.  He had a spare man to his left in space but chose to shoot wide.  Tottenham dropped deep around the 15 minute mark and that allowed the home team to move up the left and get a dangerous cross in from the left, but it was too high for his forwards.

Xavi Simons came in from the left and shot but it was going wide and even wider when Kilman headed it for a corner in the 19th minute.  That was headed in by Christian Romero at the near post but it was ruled out by the referee for pushing by Micky van de Ven, which was a soft decision, with Micky being manhandled by Fernandes.  Giving big games to such an unreliable referee as Gillett is a big error by the PGMLO and the VAR agreement is just another example of them all sticking together instead of looking at the action and judging it on its merits, not on what his refereeing mate said.  Refereeing standards are dropping like a stone and Gillett is among it’s worst offenders.

Mathys went down injured on 22 minutes and got up to carry on, but it looked like his knee was giving him problems.  The game lacked tempo and hit a lull in the middle of the first half as Spurs looked happy to play the ball back and forth across the pitch, with the home side not closing down as they had in the first 15 minutes as they were content to sit in.  Tottenham did make a move down the left with Spence finding Lucas Begvall over-lapping, but his pull back didn’t create a chance and Pedro Porro’s cross too long for Bergvall.

Spurs won three corners and all of which saw Fernandes do more to van de Ven than the goal was disallowed for.  The referee and VAR failed to make a decision when the referee failed to.  None of them came to anything, but when Bowen went down with Bergvall near him, it was deemed a foul.  It would have been interesting if it had happened inside the box as Bowen won the free-kick rather than there being contact.

A cross by Bowen caused a moment of panic, with van de Ven heading the ball when Vic called for it and the ball then bounced off Romero into the keeper’s hands.  More cheers from the Irons fans when Kudus’ cross went off a defender for a corner !  Why ?  The second phase after the corner caused panic, with Romero having a shot blocked at close range before the ball was smuggled away.

The problem Spurs had was that Tel is not a target man and when the ball was played to him in the air, it was invariably won by the gargantuan home defenders, so there was a disconnect in the Spurs play, which looked better when they moved the ball through midfield.  Mathys is a willing runner, but isolated, he found it difficult to link up play.

A late foul when Paqueta took Spence’s ankles down in the corner at the West Ham end gave Spurs a final opportunity to threaten the West Ham goal, but it was cleared and the half-time whistle went straight away.

West Ham started the second half with a shot built up from the kick-off, but Bowen dragged it wide.  Spurs moved the ball to the other end where Spence had a cross blocked out for a corner on the left and when Xavi played it deep to the far post, Pape Matar Sarr was totally free to power a header into the net past the keeper and two defenders on the goal-line.  It was a well-worked move as most players had been drawn into the goalmouth, but the long cross allowed Pape to find the space to plant the header into the back of the net.

After the goal, Bowen tried a shot that bounced in front of Vicario and he had to shovel it away and then Kilman headed a free-kick over the top, after Djed picked up a yellow card for a foul on Bowen that was a bit harsh.  What wasn’t harsh was when the referee had no doubt when Soucek flew into a terrible tackle on Joao Palhinha and was shown the red card straight away.  It was a straight red for a straight leg that caught Joao just underneath his knee with his studs.  The free-kick was taken square and Cristian Romero’s diagonal box picked out Bergvall, who headed it over the keeper to rub in the sending off and to make it 2-0.  Not many West Ham fans saw the first Tottenham goal, as there were so many white seats on view as they couldn’t be bothered to come back quickly after half-time and there were some empty now, as the home support left as they knew what was going to happen.

The boos when Kudus was on the ball lessened and the intensity of the West Ham players also diminished despite a couple of substitutions.  From the second phase of another corner, Xavi played the ball into Bergvall in the box and he managed to prod the ball square around the penalty spot for Micky to sweep the ball past the keepers dive to the right into the bottom corner of the net.

From a Bergvall long throw that was headed out, Kudus flashed a volley high over the bar from outside the area and Spurs were able to rest Spence and Simons, bringing on Richarlison and Destiny Udogie .  As the game started to be played at a walking pace, as the Irons wanted to limit the damage, but there were less and less of their supporters there to see it.  Brennan Johnson and Kevin Danso came off the bench to take the place of Bergvall and van de Ven, but the game was like a training ground exercise, with West Ham unwilling to come out, so Spurs were happy to knock the ball around without any pressure.

As more and more Irons vacated their seats there was less and less noise from the home sections, with the Spurs fans enjoying their day out.  The lack of ambition and ability and pride in this West Ham team is shockingly bad.  A club who claim to want to challenge in the Premier League are being cheated by their board, who chop and change managers, spending more on their pay-offs than they do on buying new players.  They can’t even challenge in individual matches.  The last fifteen minutes didn’t see a Tottenham goal, but they embarrassed the home team by playing keep ball and only looking like scoring when Porro’s cross was met on the volley by Kudus, who brought a low stop from the keeper and Johnson followed up with a shot that the grounded Hermansen managed to get behind and deflect up onto the bar although Brennan was offside.

Romero then freed Porro down the right and his ball into the box gave Mo the chance to volley home, but it was blocked for a corner, that brought another corner which Palhinha headed over at the near post.

The game petered out with West Ham not challenging and the crowd didn’t even bother booing them off.  This must be the worst Irons team since they were relegated and despite their win over Forest last time out, this indicates that there is little plan to their play and the porous defence looks like it is giving them a mountain to climb in terms of goal difference.

As for Spurs, it is difficult to judge where we are in our progress under Thomas Frank.  This was going to be a victory as soon as the goal was scored just after half-time and then the sending off and the second goal within a couple minutes sealed the victory.  After that, we didn’t really extend ourselves and the third goal came from Micky, with the rest of the game played with no risk and if the chance came for another effort at goal, then so be it.

Again, it is hard to pick out star performers, because the game was so straightforward, but special mention must go to Pape and Lucas, who were dynamic and energetic in their play, which caused West Ham problems, coupled with their goals which were both headers and were both well-taken.

If someone was to give me a West Ham/Spurs half and half scarf (not that I would want one), I know which half I would always want to support and there are probably a few Irons seriously considering their life choices.  The Spurs website have asked for Spurs fans to turn the ground white on Tuesday for our Champions League match against Villarreal.  West Ham fans did it at the Taxpayers for us !

• This was Tottenham’s 100th win over West Ham United in competitive matches.
• Lucas Bergvall made his 50th Spurs appearance.
• Xavi Simons made his Tottenham debut.
• West Ham gave a debut to Soungoutou Magassa.
• Tomas Soucek was sent off on his 250th West Ham appearance.
• Pape Matar Sarr’s goal was the 12,000th scored in all of West Ham United’s Premier League matches.