West Ham United claimed a hard fought Premier League victory over London rivals Tottenham Hotspur on Thursday night after coming from behind to win 2-1.
An early header from Cristian Romero looked as though he might have set an initially dominant Spurs on the way to ending a run of win-less league games at four.
But Jarrod Bowen’s 50th goal for a resilient Hammers side that played with far greater energy after the interval brought things level, before James Ward-Prowse won it in slightly fortuitous circumstances.
How the game unfolded
West Ham had barely touched the ball by the time Romero found the top corner with a header in the 11th minute. Spurs controlled possession majestically and all the visiting Hammers seemed able to do for a sustained period was clear their lines and wait for the next wave.
It was no surprise it couldn’t last and the resistance was broken when an unmarked Romero rose highest in the middle of the box to direct Pedro Porro’s corner beyond the reach of Lukasz Fabianski.
West Ham initially responded well to the setback, playing with a little more adventure, but Spurs soon reapplied a relentless stranglehold of the ball that was almost impossible to break.
The frame of the goal came to Kurt Zouma’s aid when he stretched with every sinew to cut out a potentially dangerous cross from Giovani Lo Celso on the left, ricocheting off the woodwork. The chance had been engineered by great interplay from Dejan Kulusevski and Yves Bissouma.
It took until the closing moments of the first half for West ham to carve out a genuine chance, but after excellent work from Mohammed Kudus on the right to cross towards the far space, Lucas Paqueta’s attempted header in acres of space was somewhat pathetic.
Even with all the ball, the home side weren’t doing enough to add to their led, with most of the shots peppered at the West Ham off-target and those weren’t straightforward for Fabianski. They were punished for that when Bowen got a break out of nowhere, presented with the ball and the goal gaping when Kudus’ shot doubled ricocheted off Romero and Ben Davies.
The goal gave the Hammers a bit more belief than they’d had all night and it was the first time Tottenham had been under any real pressure. It wouldn’t have counted because of an offside flag, but Guglielmo Vicario even had to pull off a spectacular one-handed save from Tomas Soucek.
Fabianski had strong palms to parry a driven effort from Spurs right-back Pedro Porro, while…
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