West Ham beat Spurs on another memorable East Enders night.

West Ham beat Spurs on another memorable East Enders night.

Oh to be a football supporter! Last night it all came up roses for my terribly misunderstood football team. After a season of nervous tension, bitten fingernails and more anxiety than any of us care to remember West Ham finally came up trumps and beat their sworn enemies from North London Spurs at the London Stadium. I have to tell you this is no good for my blood pressure and at this rate I may be in need of emotional compensation. I'll have to check out my pulse because this season has been worryingly wretched for the Hammers and a man can only take so much.

So here we were on a night of Friday night football courtesy of our chums at Sky TV. There are times when televised football can just leave you cold and dumbfounded. The whole structure of  the Premier League has now been tampered with to such a large extent that it's hard to remember who's playing when and what TV channel they may be playing on. Kick off times are now at the mercy of both Sky and BT Sport and it looks as if football has been completely dictated by football's paymasters.

Still it was West Ham and Spurs at the London Stadium and we all know what that means. It means bitter local rivalry, a large slice of resentment and utter contempt for each other. This has always been the way and yet with the passing of  the seasons and years there has been no attempt at peace and reconciliation so we may have to content ourselves with the knowledge that both teams can still deliver some of the most constructive and purest football on the plant. You suspect that Bill Nicholson and Ron Greenwood would have been completely satisfied and delighted with this fare.

The backdrop to this London derby was both vivid and stark. West Ham have had a completely forgettable and horrible season at their new London Stadium. It has been a season of adjustment and acclimatisation for the men in claret and blue completely ruined by off the field upheavals and the prima donna outbursts of one Dimitri Payet, a wonderfully stylish playmaker but a man who made his displeasure known on more than one occasion.

The story was that Payet's family had quite clearly not settled in London and therefore Payet's relationship with West Ham would become deeply strained. If this was the case it does occur to you that maybe the player should have sought alternative employment sooner rather than later. It's hard to read a player's mind when things become knotted and twisted off the pitch but now that the season has reached its anti climactic conclusion it would be tempting to think that West Ham will glad to see the back of this season.

For now they can still point to one man whose eye catching displays have dragged West Ham back into the comfort zone after a treacherously difficult season. Rumours of unrest have often been rife and now that the club have sailed into calmer waters it does seem that the Hammers are safe from relegation for another season. One man Manuel Lanzini has risen above the confusion with  exceptional skill on the ball and that traditional Argentinian flair.

And yet for those who follow their team's fortunes with an almost trembling foreboding this is one season I will do my utmost to wipe from my memory. For those of a claret and blue persuasion you'd probably think I ought to be accustomed to this regular offering of footballing pain and purgatory. How many more times have West Ham have endured this dreadfully embarrassing scenario where relegation always hovers in the air like the darkest of clouds. But certainly the silver lining could be found in the twinkle toed and immensely nimble feet of Lanzini.

For long periods of this London derby humdinger, Lanzini instantly recalled the silky skills and feathery touch of an  Osvaldo Ardilles, a player with the same low centre of gravity but equally as capable of opening up defences with a tantalising wriggle of the hips and a surging run that invariably spreads panic in any opposing defence.

Last night Lanzini played psychological havoc with the Spurs defence over and over again. There is a devil may care impish impudence about Lanzini that is Ardilles in a modern day incarnation. Lanzini rotates his body deviously as if challenging defenders into foolhardiness and fallibility. He then shrugs his opponents aside as if they were not there before slipping through a tangle of legs and just running magically and mystically at gasping defenders.

There were times when Spurs had no answer to this loveliest of footballing technicians, a player of refinement and accomplishment, a player educated at the best of footballing universities. All that was missing was the academic cap and gown. Lanzini revelled in the most confined of spaces, skipping and darting his way into the Tottenham half , a slinky and slippery customer always seeking out dangerous pathways into the Spurs penalty area from all manner of angles.

But it was not only Lanzini who made you purr with admiration. Alongside the Argentinian wizard there was Chekhou Kayoute, a tall, leggy and powerful midfielder who often looks as though he may be going the wrong way and then charges forward like a sprinting gazelle. It's hard to know why the Senegalese seems to move backwards rather than forwards although this may be a gimmick. Nonetheless Kayoute made enduring impressions on the game with his forceful presence in midfield and an admirable willingness to take on his man and win back possession when all seemed lost.

Then there was the captain Mark Noble. Noble does seem to be reaching the twilight of his career but although never considered for an England cap perhaps unfairly at times, Noble still held his position at the heart of West Ham's midfield, unfussy and tidy while always striving to be one step ahead of everybody in both thought and deed. There is nothing of the vain and conceited about Noble. Sometimes Noble looks too modest and unassuming for his own liking. He is one football's fetchers and carriers, drifting almost unobtrusively into the middle of the London Stadium, prompting, probing and mopping up rather like a school caretaker after the bell has gone. There is an efficiency and eagerness about Noble that reminds you of the playground player who always wants to be picked first.

West Ham's forward line looked at times quite fragile and threadbare. Andre Ayew, the £20 million signing from Swansea hasn't quite lived up to the goal scoring reputation he thought he'd established at the Liberty Stadium. Too often Ayew resembled a dog in desperate pursuit of its bone. There was a good deal of chasing and scampering after the long, hopeful ball but sadly Ayew may not be the plausible long term answer to West Ham's chronic lack of goal scoring prowess. You can be sure that Andy Carroll West Ham's almost permanently injured striker must have been champing at the bit but then realised that he'd sprained and pulled something that rendered him immobile and unable to play.

Jonathan Calleri, seemingly replacing the crocked Carrroll, did have one of his better games, full of sweat, hard work and unrelenting industry but surely not the 20 goal a season attacker West Ham crave and covet.  Calleri should have scored in the second half but although his shot was firm and hard Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris got his hands low down and palmed the ball around the post to safety. When Robert Snodgrass came on as a sub it almost looked as if West Ham had probably settled for the one goal. Snodgrass was never likely to be another Payet and with that now very fashionable beard, Snodgrass puffed out his chest full of Scottish grit, purpose and endeavour.

After a backs to the wall, highly committed and superb defensive display West Ham rolled up their sleeves dutifully and spent most of the game in conscientious mode. West Ham played like nine to five factory workers, toiling away at their work benches with determined diligence and derring  do. This was not West Ham at their most polished rather a team with eyes firmly fixed on the future and next season. It was capable and competent football rather than those free flowing days of the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

As for Spurs this defeat has now almost assuredly marked the end of their gallant Premier League title bid. Chelsea, in all likelihood, had probably won the Premier League at Christmas although this may be unfair to their challengers. Spurs have enjoyed one of their best seasons for ages and if somebody had told them that they would finish as runners up a couple of weeks ago then they may well have accepted this as their fate.

But then there are those hardened, devoted Spurs loyalists who remain convinced that 1961 is a dreadfully long time and the League title should be adorning their trophy cabinet once again. Dele Alli is still one of their most outstanding of discoveries and may well have the feet and brain to control any game. But there is a disturbing undercurrent in his game that some find unsettling. Alli has been booked and sent off on far too many occasions for his good and that spikiness, that bad temper may have to be worked upon and refined if he is to become an England fixture.

In Eric Dier, Christian Erikssen and Son Spurs still have a highly regarded and much heralded midfield base that blends beautifully at times and looks to win consistently and conclusively. Erikssen is one of Spurs many cultured of midfield players, one that stretches back to Glen Hoddle, David Ginola. Danny Blanchflower and the aforesaid Ossie Ardilles, all very neat and attractive players with a simple pass on their minds and visionary vision, players of craft and strategy rather than caution and adequacy.

Too often though last night Spurs looked repressed, stifled, frustrated, hot and bothered. The nine game unbeaten run looked as if it might have taken much more out of them than at first seemed possible. Frequently they moved the ball around West Ham with short, accurate passing around a wall of claret and blue. But then they found that they were running into heavy traffic and cul-de-sacs. There was nowhere for Spurs to go and every time they exhausted one set of possibilities another immediately appeared again only to find themselves up against more cones and more road works.

West Ham's strong arm defence consisting of the elegant Jose Fonte, the reliable Winston Reid and the splendidly rugged James Collins with brown beard for company, built the most impregnable of defensive  fortresses. Every time Spurs knitted their passes together Fonte, Reid and Collins held firm and stubborn rather like a wall that refuses to be moved. Now Spurs began to think they were probably wasting their time and by the closing minutes, they looked leg weary and leaden footed. Once again history had repeated itself but this time it was a chase they never looked like winning.

West Ham's only goal came from the scheming Lanzini, the result of Cresswell's low cross that was scrambled back into the six yard box where Lanzini was in the right place and right time to thrash the ball into the back of the net after 65 minutes. For the next half an hour West Ham set up their barracks with sandbags and dogged resistance. The Hammers sheltered in their bunker as Spurs huffed and puffed but couldn't blow the West Ham house down.

And then there was the final whistle and Spurs slumped to the ground, broken, battered and dispirited. They put their bayonets and guns down, faces flushed and nerves in tatters. It was as if their world had come to an end, a side who have played the most commendable football, football that should always be played this way but came up short because their London neighbours Chelsea had an extra tank of petrol and knew the one way system better than Spurs.

There was a chill late night wind in East London. The shopping mall that is Westfield in Stratford had long since shut and over 56,000 supporters streamed away from the London Stadium. The home supporters must have felt like a million dollars because this one meant something, meant something personal, meant revenge for the 3-2 defeat at White Hart Lane. But after a hard and punishing season at their new stadium West Ham can finally pack their holiday suitcase free from trouble, worry and care. Sometimes we take sport too seriously but when West Ham step onto the field of play there is a part of me  that wishes I too could just relax and take it easy. Still it surely wouldn't be a season without a perennial struggle. How we love the happy Hammers. Oh for those bubbles.