‘95-minute performance’ sees Tottenham Hotspur run riot to beat West Ham United
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Tottenham Hotspur's Yves Bissouma (centre) celebrating scoring their second goal in a 4-1 home win over West Ham United on Oct 19.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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LONDON – Manager Ange Postecoglou praised Tottenham Hotspur’s “95-minute performance” as they roared back from behind to beat West Ham United 4-1 on Oct 19, overrunning their London rivals in the second half to ease the pain of their recent collapse against Brighton & Hove Albion.
A third win in four English Premier League games lifted Postecoglou’s men to sixth in the table ahead of the later kick-offs but heaped the pressure on new West Ham coach Julen Lopetegui.
Victory for Spurs came 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 chances 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 10 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
