Spurs win fiercely contested London derby against West Ham.

Spurs win fiercely contested London derby against West Ham.

Somebody really ought to familiarise West Ham with the ball. At some point the penny will undoubtedly drop for the East London side but for West Ham the unfolding season is beginning to look like a dirty curtain. For most of last season, their first at the London Stadium, there seemed to be an obvious uncertainty and nervous apprehension about them that spread complete havoc within the team. Eight defeats at home should have alerted the club to imminent danger and after their 3-2 defeat against a smoothly functioning Spurs side West Ham once again looked like strangers at lunchtime rather than late evening jazz artists.

Slaven Bilic, the West Ham boss, will now begin to wonder whether the game may well be up for him. Most Premier League managers can never be guaranteed any kind of longevity let alone a permanent appointment but for Bilic this latest defeat against local rivals Spurs must feel like the worst of all nightmares. West Ham, for the time being, are now stuck in the quicksand and the feeling must be that if something doesn't happen quickly for them in the foreseeable future then the man with the dark hood will hover over Bilic's head with the most sinister of glares.

 Surely the man from Croatia couldn't have imagined that football could do this to you particularly when the nights are now drawing in and the cold draughts of autumn are sending sharp shivers down your back. Admittedly West Ham are not the team who performed so efficiently and confidently in their last season at Upton Park and contributed so vastly to their seventh place finish in that season.

Still West Ham may have to get right back to the drawing board. But the pens and pencils have gone missing and the unless the club find the right kind of compass then a season of struggle and hard labour may await. The three defeats away from home which opened up their campaign have now left the most repulsive smell in the air and if they don't found an effective disinfectant at their disposal then the London Stadium may find itself burdened with a terrible sewage problem.

We are now near the end of the second month of the Premier League season and West Ham are treading water so alarmingly that the natives may become restless. This was not the season West Ham were hoping for and after all the high profile signings of Javier Hernandez and Marko Anautovic from Bayer Leverkusen and Stoke City respectively, it must have felt as if all the bolts and nuts had come loose again and the engine was overheating.

When Hernandez signed for West Ham, the home side must have felt as if all their dreams had come true all at once. Although Chicharito did pull one back for West Ham in the second half it was no more than a sticking plaster. The damage had been done quite significantly and West Ham boss Slaven Bilic reminded you of a man waiting for a bus to arrive when quite clearly it was never destined to come.

In brief glimmering patches against Southampton and then the competent 2-0 home victory against promoted Huddersfield West Ham did have focus and clarity of mind. But the jittery faultlines are so evident that the alarm bells must be ringing for West Ham. The Hammers still looked a lumbering, blundering shambles wholly incapable of stringing together any semblance of a passing movement.

For the opening half an hour the claret and blue shirts began to swarm around the Tottenham defence like angry bees but without the sting and sure footedness that might have made made their life so much easier. It is at times like this when you begin to wonder whether they should have resorted to a more aggressive approach rather than the pretty embellishments that Spurs were beginning to impose on the game.

Spurs of course are rather like a puzzle wrapped in a mystery, a case of the Enigma code finally being deciphered. At their temporary home of Wembley Stadium, Spurs have been appallingly out of sorts and the draws at home to Swansea and Burnley may have destabilised Tottenham rather more than they might have thought. For Wembley Stadium read West Ham's first season at the London Stadium and an ordnance survey map maybe the answer to Spurs problems. It is not yet a chronic malaise but it does feel as if a psychological obstacle is holding them back at home.

Once again though when Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen, Harry Kane, Moussa Sissoko and the ever influential Jan Vertonghen began to pick their way beautifully through a static and statuesque defence, you were reminded of a retreating platoon of soldiers. Suddenly there were shadows of the great Bill Nicholson side of the 1960s and 70s, maybe a glimpse of Arthur Rowe's audacious push and run side of the 1950s but that might be pushing analogies too far.

Still once Spurs had overcome their doubts and misgivings moving forward, the football they've now subjected their supporters to for well over a season now under Spurs Mauricio Pochettino is beginning to look like the finished article. There is a completeness and finesse about Spurs football that reminds you of a well varnished mahogany table.

Eriksen, notably is still one of the most polished and artistic midfield playmakers in the country and one of the most outstanding footballers you could ever wish to see. Eriksen, is neat, proper, classically cultured and cultivated, organising, scheming, foraging and finally unlocking West Ham in the most clinical fashion. It may have been a Chubb or Yale key but none at Spurs, for one, are in any mood for complaining.

Spurs took the lead then in the 34th minute when a whirlwind break took from the visitors left West Ham perplexed and internally bewildered. A wayward ball from West Ham's Andy Carroll on the half way line left the Spurs attack with the most perfect licence to thrill. Eriksen found Dele Alli  who swiftly moved into wide open space and his delightfully low cross was sharply headed home by Harry Kane. West Ham goalkeeper Joe Hart could only flap at thin air and the breath had been sucked out of the home side.

Four minutes later another Spurs counter attack of almost lethal ferocity, left West Ham once again gasping and grasping. A ball prodded over the top of the home side's by now besieged defence  eventually resulted in a fierce shot from Spurs which West Ham had no way of clearing and the ball fell straight to Harry Kane. Kane slotted the ball into the West Ham net and, rather like a child with a toy, Kane became the perfect citizen with one of the easiest of finishes he will ever get. Then the impeccable Eriksen rifled home Spurs third which should have taken the game out of West Ham's reach.

In the second half though West Ham rallied gallantly but then found there were no clearings in the rainforest. By now West Ham were chasing a seemingly lost cause. For a period it did seem that West Ham had finally discovered what to do and how to do it. No sooner had they lost their footing in the second half when they finally gained a steady foothold on the game.

Hernandez, who had hitherto looked like a dog hunting that elusive bone, darted into the penalty area with a devastating headed finish which gave West Ham the lifeline they must have thought was beyond them. Then with four minutes left Spurs began to look like an intrepid trapeze artist in a circus. The feet were wobbling, their balance disturbed and to all intents and purposes in danger of falling helplessly into the safety net.

 For West Ham, Cheikhou Kouyate's bullet of a header from Arthur Masuaku running cross thudded into the net almost eloquently. For the last ten to fifteen minutes, Spurs juggled their plates, patiently bided their time and gradually released the pressure valve that may have led to their undoing. A third equaliser had proved beyond West Ham and their North London neighbours finally announced gloating rights. This was no Battle of Agincourt but there are times when you can actually smell the smoke in the air as two sides lock horns in the most competitive mood.

For those of us who have followed  the Hammers for an unfeasibly long period of time, this was another familiar rendition of blood and thunder, a clash of cymbals and a weeping violin accompanying this very discordant orchestra. I ought to be used to these minor footballing disasters in claret and blue, these calamitous pratfalls, these almost clownish indiscretions. Oh to be a West Ham United fan when the autumn conkers fall and the Sword of Damocles falls dangerously over the London Stadium. But maybe this has always been the way.