Soccer / west ham

Tottenham and West Ham drew 1:1 in London derby after solid performance of both sides and under heavy rain. Spurs went out in this lineup: Vicario, Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Udogie, Bissouma, Bentancur, Maddison, Werner, Son, Johnson. Kulusevski and Sarr started on the bench alongside Dragusin while Van de Ven is back in action. West Ham could take a lead in 2nd minute, but James Ward-Prowse didn't hit the ball like he wanted close to 5m line. Tottenham took a lead in 4th minute after Werner ran inside the box and sent low ball inside where Johnson used his pace and ran in front of defender to tap in ball inside the net! Spurs had more of the ball, but allowed to many corners and after one of such ball came toward Zouma who scored by head from inside 5 meters closer to front post. Before that Van de Ven who marked other man failed to hit it, while 3 other Spurs player watched this goal. I wonder who had task to watch for Zouma on corners ? Nothing much happened until half time. West Ham started better second half, but they couldn't make clear cut chance, just like Spurs on the other side. Spurs had more of the ball again, but all they could do were some shots from inside the box and most of them were blocked. Then referee Brooks jumped on big stage by not giving foul on Maddison in front of penalty box when Paqueta ran into him from behind when he prepared to shoot or make key pass. In next moment ball was on our half, Antonio ran toward goal with Van de Ven chasing him, Dutchman felt, Antonio was alone, but Vicario saved his attempt. That was the biggest chance in the match. From Spurs perspective finish was the most exciting. Richarlison, Kulusevski, Sarr and Hojbjerg came in. Udogie had nice opportunity, but instead of passing to Richarlison on the left he tried to shoot and did it bad straight into goalkeeper and chance was gone! West Ham went all in attack, after one melee inside Spurs box Son who was not on his level yesterday lead counter attack. It was 3 on 3, Richalrison right in the best position, Kulusevski on left wing. Korean looked right and left and for some reason unknown to me he didn't pass to Brazilian but to Kulusevski who had 2 team mates near him, but decided to send long high cross toward Richarlison and got blocked! I also think Richarlison was already in offside when that happen, but I guess we will never know. West Ham had one more melee in Spurs box few seconds after but Tottenham players defended themselves and result remained 1:1. Players from Tottenham gave everything they could on the pitch yesterday, I could feel that, so I will not complain to much except on two situations a part from this counter attack. First was when Johnson went out of play with ball because he failed to control it once more. It was not first time he is doing that. Other situation is when Dejan Kulusevski made one of his "something else" moments when he failed to pass to team mate on 7-8 meters without visible obstacles and ball ended at least 2 meters behind player. That was really poor. It's nice to have possession of the ball, but you need to be able to make good action to break opponent who is sitting deep. Repertoire must be diverse, unpredictable, one-twos, shooting from distance, dribbling, high ball over to the runner, crossing etc... like City is doing. Also we need to release ball faster, some of our players hold ball for to long and miss right time to pass. We were not any kind of danger from corners yesterday. However overall movement of our players was for me better than in previous game and they made more direct balls which is good. This game shows our current level which is somewhere like West Ham. Next game is against Nottingham Forest and after that we're going to play on though places and against the best this season. We need to be better in those games!