Woltemade makes big impression while Leeds suffer hilarious new low in London<\/a><\/p>\nRather than being buoyed by their let off, the Hammers shrank. Spurs assumed control and never looked like losing it.<\/p>\n
The opener came from another corner two minutes into the second half. West Ham seemed to take the view that you can\u2019t lose a physical battle you don\u2019t engage in, leaving Pape Sarr with the freedom of the far post. This was not a cleverly-contrived routine. Sarr merely stood still, with little need for blocking around him, before crashing an unchallenged header past Mads Hermansen.<\/p>\n
The following 10 minutes saw West Ham wilt entirely. Tomas Soucek\u2019s red card for ripping Joao Palhinha\u2019s sock to ribbons was a blow, sure. But when the red card was waved, so was the white flag.<\/p>\n
There were three minutes between Soucek\u2019s dismissal and Lucas Bergvall\u2019s first Premier League goal, but almost that entire period was lost to the Czech\u2019s slow, apologetic departure. Once play restarted, West Ham were undone by three passes, the last being a simple chip over a disorganised, disheartened defence for Bergvall to place a free header beyond Hermansen\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n
Potter\u2019s defence were not done disgracing themselves. Seven minutes later, Bergvall wandered into the box before teeing up Van der Van. Despite the presence of eight defenders, in body but not spirit, the Spurs centre-back was allowed to pick his spot.<\/p>\n
It had already become a damage limitation exercise, with West Ham possessing neither the guts or guile to bother Spurs a man light. Many if not most home fans made for the exit, sparing Potter and his players a furious reaction. Those who were left greeted the sweet release of the final whistle with a whimper. And when West Ham fans have lost the will to scorn\u2026<\/p>\n
Some consolation: Spurs didn\u2019t score five, as Chelsea did last month. And Mohamed Kudus was unsuccessful in his late quest to score against his former side.<\/p>\n
Those, though, are tiny crumbs of comfort for a fanbase watching local rivals take the p*ss on their patch on an almost weekly basis while their owners sit idly by.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If there\u2019s one thing more shameful to wear in east London than a half-and-half scarf this weekend, it\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-19839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}