West Ham 1 - 0 Tottenham: Hammers inflict more capital punishment on Spurs

Michail Antonio’s second-half strike was enough to see West Ham United claim all three points and climb above Tottenham Hotspur, inflicting a fourth successive away defeat in the capital on Nuno Espírito Santo’s side.

West Ham came into this London derby knowing victory would take them above their city rivals Tottenham and with this incentive at the forefront of their minds, the ‘Hammers’ started on the front-foot. Some strong work in the left channel from Michail Antonio finished with West Ham’s talisman perfectly teeing up Tomáš Souček but the Czech international who is usually ruthless in front of goal blazed over. 

Spurs were offering precious little in an attacking sense, but their one bright spark was Tanguy Ndombele and it was his inch-perfect pass which sent Son Heung-min bearing down on goal, but his low drive was impressively stopped by Łukasz Fabiański.

Souček was fast becoming Spurs’ tormentor-in-chief and he came tantalisingly close to firing his side in front as he rose highest to connect with Pablo Fornals’ teasing cross, but his powerful header missed the target as his wait for a first goal since August goes on. 

A game of basketball was fast breaking out, with some thrilling end-to-end football on show, and all that was missing was a goal. Oliver Skipp produced a fantastic last-ditch block to deny Saïd Benrahma, but the game was fast petering out towards a draw and needed some inspiration from somewhere to ignite it into life.

Antonio added the much-needed fuel to the fire 20-minutes from time, as shrugged off his marker to get a boot on Aaron Cresswell’s corner and the ‘Hammers’ were heading towards a first Premier League (PL) home win in four games. Spurs had back-to-back PL wins to their name prior to visiting the London Stadium, so they were in no mood to see their winning run grind to a halt, but a late equaliser proved elusive and Nuno’s side were forced to make the short journey back to North-London empty-handed.