Spurs Must Reinvigorate Themselves Ahead of Ajax Clash After Toothless West Ham Display
If you’ve watched Spurs over the course of this season, performances and results like Saturday's are not a huge shock.
They’ve got these days in them. It was one of those games where the longer it went on, the less it looked like Spurs would break West Ham down. Not because of a lack of quality and not because West Ham were defending like Trojans, or even like Brighton.
In fact, West Ham played with a dangerously high line and were very open.
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The reason you felt the game might get away from Spurs is because of the pace of it. Everything was slow, at times lethargic, at times leggy, at times wasteful.
Where teams like Man City, Liverpool and (on occasion) Chelsea are good is that when you see opponents make the game slow and heavy, they have players that suddenly can spark into life. They move from second gear to fourth gear in an instant and make something happen.
Spurs may have Lucas Moura, Son Heung-min, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen, but these players have only dipped their toes into the pool of creative genius - rather than taking a running bomb into the deep end.
The other problem is, Spurs are prone to the occasional error at the back as well. And a mix up between Davinson Sanchez and Toby Alderweireld, as well as some beautiful vision from Marko Arnautovic, left Michail Antonio a yard of space to chest the ball down and smash it past Hugo Lloris.
At this point, it is definitely worth mentioning that it was a stunning finish and a brilliantly worked goal. At this point, it is also worth mentioning that Spurs should have been in a position where they were out of sight and ready to start shutting the game down.
As the match petered out credit has to go to West Ham for their doggedness with 20 minutes to play, but in truth Spurs looked out of ideas. They looked out of creative energy and more than anything they looked drained.
All was set for a Vincent Janssen last minute equaliser but a fantastic clearance off the line from Fabian Balbuena made sure West Ham snuck over the line and got the win.
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This wasn’t a case of ‘there’s half an eye on the Champions League', this was a case of it being a very cagey London derby and Spurs just not being at it having played for the seventh time in April.
It’s a killer for Spurs that the first goal scored by an opponent at the new stadium comes in this fashion, it’s even tougher that it brings a first home defeat in a week when they really didn’t need to be losing momentum.
All eyes now switch to whether, come Wednesday, they can summon up their Man City Champions League quarter final spirit, rather than the slightly limp variation on display today.
