West Ham 0-1 Tottenham: 3 things we learned

Tottenham beat West Ham 1-0 in an underwhelming London derby on Saturday. Here are three things we learned from the match.

Erik Lamela’s first-half goal was enough to see Tottenham to victory, but West Ham will look at this as a chance to move up the table they let slip. Here are three talking points from the match.

Tottenham are more functional than flowing this season

Mauricio Pochettino warned at the start of the season that Spurs fans would have to temper their expectations this year. 

Under Pochettino, Spurs have steadily improved, consistently finishing in the Champions League spots, all while playing beautiful, flowing, high-intensity soccer.

This season, Spurs have showed glimpses of that in matches, but they haven’t been able to sustain it against every team they’ve faced.

This is at least partly a result of the number of Tottenham players who featured in the World Cup, which has probably contributed to their long injury list.

Danny Rose, Jan Verthongen, Victor Wanyama and Dele Alli were all out for this fixture against West Ham, while Mousa Dembele and Christian Eriksen could only manage a place on the bench after recently recovering from knocks.

Pochettino has had to adapt to the situation presented to him. The lack of summer investment coupled with the recent stadium troubles has seen Tottenham’s squad pushed to their limit. They’ve had to resort to grinding out results away from home, and against West Ham things were no different.

The match was stop-start throughout, and Lamela’s goal came out of the blue. That should have sparked the match to life, but the second half continued along the same lines and petered to a very tame end.

Spurs will be pleased, though; they’re back in the top four.

West Ham should be very disappointed

On the face of it, things couldn’t have been better poised for West Ham to get one over their hated London rivals; Tottenham’s squad have been stretched to their very last sinew, West Ham have been buoyed by some extremely good performances lately and with a whole two weeks to train, they should have been well prepared.

West Ham were listless. They should have come out of the blocks quickly, pressing high and disrupting Tottenham’s passing, but they allowed Spurs to gain control of the ball early on. Spurs weren’t at their best today, which should have played into West Ham’s game plan.

Manuel Pellegrini — a tactically astute manager who has won the Premier League before — got his tactics wrong today. As a result, West Ham’s performance suffered.

After going down to an avoidable goal, West Ham should have been out the traps in the second half with fire and fury, but yet again they were tepid and tame.

Spurs barely had to break a sweat, and although Hugo Lloris had to make a great save at one point, they were never really threatened.

Lamela and Moura are Totteham’s shining lights

For someone who was signed as a replacement to Gareth Bale, Erik Lamela had a lot to live up to. His first few years at the club were ravaged by injuries and confidence issues, and many Spurs fans had started to get on his back to deliver.

Lamela now has five goals in eight appearances this season. He’s forcing his way into the starting XI, and is developing into a player his team can rely upon to ease the goalscoring burden on Harry Kane.

Similarly, Lucas Moura, who was signed in January, has been eased into the team by Pochettino, but has already established himself as a regular.

Lucas’ goals may have dried up in recent weeks, but he offers so much to the team. His pace is a threat when he has the time to turn and run at defenders, and is an extremely useful feature when counter-attacking.

Pochettino has to be given credit for getting the best out of these players.

Tottenham may not have signed any player over the summer, but Lucas and Lamela will feel like new signings to their manager after continuing to deliver.

Spurs fans have a long season ahead, but they’ll be delighted with these two.