Tottenham Hotspur Dominate in 95-Minute Performance to Overcome West Ham United

Ange Postecoglou's team secured their third victory in four English Premier League games, propelling them to sixth place in the standings. However, the win adds more pressure on new West Ham coach Julen Lopetegui.

Victory for Spurs comes after they blew a 2-0 lead in a 3-2 loss at Brighton in their final league game before the international break.

Postecoglou, who had remarked that he was “ready to explode” after the Brighton loss, was happier on Oct 19, saying: “It was a bad 45 minutes not a bad 90 minutes (against Brighton), so we were not that far away. In that game, we stopped doing the things we had to do in the second half, but today it was a 95-minute performance.

“Second half we were outstanding. We upped the tempo and played some quality football, defended when we needed to and got our finishing right.”

The teams were level at half-time at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after Mohammed Kudus’ opener against the run of play was cancelled out by the impressive Dejan Kulusevski.

But the match changed complexion in a frantic spell early in the second half when Yves Bissouma’s strike, an own goal from Alphonse Areola and a fourth from Son Heung-min took the game away from West Ham.

Son was back in the team after missing Spurs’ last three games and international duty with South Korea due to a hamstring injury.

He told TNT Sports: “Sometimes injury time (out) can be good, we have such a busy time, that two or three weeks was perfect to recharge myself and today I was feeling really, really good.

“It’s entertaining (football under Postecoglou) but also a lot of pressure. The winger is expected to create chance and get goals. I think it is a lot of joy and pressure, which is where we should be.”

Lopetegui is under a different sort of pressure after winning just two of his eight league games since taking over in the summer.

He said: “We need to improve and we need to approach the bad moments with the right mentality...

“We started well and we deserved to take the lead despite their two big chances. We defended well, attacked well and had more chances too.

“In the second half, we conceded the second goal in an action where... we have to defend better in that moment.

“After that was the bad moment in the match. It is normal that you can concede the second goal but then you cannot dismiss ten minutes, we lost all of our possibility to stay in the game and be competitive.”

To compound matters, one of the few bright spots in the Hammers’ season, Kudus, was shown a straight red in the final minutes after a video assistant referee check following a melee. AFP