Tottenham Hotspur moved into the Premier League’s high 4 as they returned to kind with a 2-0 house win over West Ham United that left their London rivals within the backside three on Sunday.
There was little to separate the edges in a forgettable first half however the hosts stepped up the tempo after the interval with objectives by Emerson Royal and substitute Son Heung-min.
It was an essential win for Spurs after defeat at Leicester City and a midweek loss away to AC Milan within the Champions League as they leapfrogged Newcastle United within the desk.
Right again Emerson marked his fiftieth Premier League recreation by opening the scoring within the 56th minute.
Son, who has struggled for kind this season and was unnoticed of the beginning lineup by stand-in supervisor Cristian Stellini, then linked with Harry Kane 4 minutes after approaching to double the Tottenham’s benefit within the 72nd.
Relegation-threatened West Ham had began the derby brightly with Jarrod Bowen losing an early probability however provided little and have now gained solely as soon as of their final 11 league video games with stress mounting on supervisor David Moyes.
Spurs have 42 factors from 24 video games, yet one more than Newcastle who’ve a recreation in hand. West Ham are in 18th with 20 factors from 23 matches, a degree beneath the protection zone.
SON BENCHED
With Tottenham head coach Antonio Conte once more absent as he recovers from gallbladder surgical procedure, his assistant Stellini shook up the beginning lineup with Son and Ivan Perisic benched.
Initially his aspect laboured and there was little for the house followers to get enthusiastic about within the opening 45 minutes, though Spurs did have a penalty attraction turned down when Richarlison’s go was dealt with by Thilo Kehrer.
Had Bowen scored early on when nicely positioned as an alternative of taking pictures extensive, West Ham may need capitalised on a Tottenham group who’ve struggled desperately for consistency.
Spurs have been much better within the second half however Kane and Richarlison wasted probabilities earlier than a flowing transfer gave the hosts the lead.
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s very good go launched Ben Davies down the left and his go was completely weighted for Emerson Royal to coolly slot a shot previous goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski.
The second objective was from a way more acquainted link-up as Kane’s go launched Son and the South Korean fired a right-foot shot into the web.
It was solely Son’s fifth league objective of the season, with three of his different efforts coming in a hat-trick off the bench in a house win towards Leicester City.
