Spurs 2-3 West Ham United
Pre-Season Friendly
The Ange Postecoglou era began in entertaining fashion on Tuesday although we were on the wrong end of a five-goal thriller against West Ham United in our first pre-season friendly of the 2023/24 campaign.
Our new Australian Head Coach was back on home soil as we took on the Hammers at Optus Stadium in Perth and he gave all of our summer signings their debuts for the Club with Guglielmo Vicario, James Maddison and Manor Solomon starting, while Destiny Udogie came off the bench to make a goalscoring introduction to his Spurs career having spent last season on loan at Udinese.
The scoreline doesn't really reflect the pattern of the game as we had 30 attempts at goal compared to West Ham's four and dominated with 71 per cent of the possession but they took their chances when they came.
Despite creating a plethora of first-half chances, we found ourselves trailing 2-0 at the interval after Danny Ings and Divin Mubama netted with headed goals in the 17th and 23rd minutes respectively.
It was the Hammers’ Lukasz Fabianski who was the busier of the two goalkeepers as he made a string of saves to deny Oliver Skipp, Dejan Kulusevski, Solomon, Maddison and Yves Bissouma, while Japhet Tanganga and Cristian Romero both spurned good chances in quick succession just before the interval.
We switched our entire team at half-time but continued to carve out so many opportunities and two goals in three minutes levelled the scores. Fabianski was finally beaten when Giovani Lo Celso swept home from Davinson Sanchez’s flick on 68 minutes before Udogie made it 2-2 with a deft header from an Ivan Perisic corner.
The Hammers had barely been in our half during the second period as we totally dominated but broke away 12 minutes from time, Pablo Fornals releasing Gianluca Scamacca and he converted past Brandon Austin.
We continued to apply pressure and Richarlison saw a number of chances come his way but we couldn't find that final opportunity to draw level once again.
Match data...
Spurs – First-half team (4-3-3): Vicario, Pedro Porro, Romero, Tanganga, Reguilon, Skipp, Bissouma, Maddison, Solomon, Kane (c), Kulusevski. Second-half team (4-3-3): Austin, Emerson, Davies, Sanchez, Udogie, Sarr, Hojbjerg, Lo Celso, Devine, Richarlison, Perisic. Substitutes (not used): Whiteman, White.
West Ham (4-4-2): Fabianksi, Laing, Zouma (Luizao 85), Ogbonna, Emerson, Bowen (Earthy 85), Potts, Downes (Chesters 69), Fornals, Mubama (Swyer 59), Ings (Scamacca 59). Substitutes (not used): Anang, Knightbridge, Cresswell, Coventry.
Goals: Spurs – Lo Celso 68, Udogie 71; West Ham – Ings 17, Mubama 23, Scamacca 78.
Yellow card: Spurs – Emerson.
Referee: Kurt Ams (Australia).
Venue: Optus Stadium, Perth, Australia.
Weather: Cloudy, moderate breeze, rain showers, 18 degrees.
Attendance: 46,266.
Ange's view...
"There are lot of positives, the first thing for me was to see the players’ willingness to try and implement some of the things we’ve been working on, their endeavours to try and play the football we want to play, particularly our pressing, these kind of things, we’ve only given them limited information but it was good to see some of those things in practice. The main thing for me is that every player out there was trying to do what we’ve been working on. That’s the key for me. Obviously, they’re disappointed with the outcome, but in terms of the football, they’ll be at least getting encouragement that if they continue to play the way we do, the rewards will come."
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