As West Ham United prepare to make the short trip to North London for Saturday’s 3pm Premier League kick-off, Tottenham Hotspur head coach Thomas Frank is of the belief a recent defeat may show the way to victory.
Frank has lost a grand total of seven home matches in all competitions since taking over in the summer.
While the London Stadium is far from the space-age fortress it was intended to be when West Ham United swapped the Boleyn Ground for, well, a bowl without a soul, Spurs’ dreadful home record has not exactly endeared their current head coach to the local support.
How West Ham would love to REPEAT that famous 3-0 win…
But can you work out the four missing players from the 2013 victory?
Nuno Espirito Santo hopes that FA Cup victory over QPR can be a springboard for a much improved second-half of the campaign. In his own way, Thomas Frank reflects on Tottenham’s third-round defeat to Aston Villa with similar hopefulness, even if first-half strikes from Emi Buendia and Morgan Rogers did see Unai Emery’s side progress at their expense.
Thomas Frank spells out what Tottenham must do to beat West Ham United
It says a lot about how low the standards have fallen at Spurs – Champions League finalists not so long ago – that a somewhat valiant 45 minutes in a home defeat to Aston Villa is being highlighted as one of the biggest pluses of the Frank era.
Talk about a game of two halves. Or, more fittingly, a performance of two halves.
Nuno jolted West Ham into life against Queens Park Rangers by introducing Pablo Felipe and Tomas Soucek. Frank, less than 24 hours earlier, saw his team up the intensity, pin Aston Villa back, and threaten to turn a 2-0 deficit into an extra-time battle.
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They would ultimately fail, of course.
But Frank knows that, with a repeat of their dismal first-half showing against Villa, they would be risking an embarrassing derby defeat up there with 2013’s Ravel Morrison-inspired trouncing. A performance more akin to their second-half showing against Villa, though, and Spurs may have too much for a West Ham side with the worst defensive record in the Premier League.
“I know it’s a big London derby against West Ham, with the rivalry and everything,” Frank tells the club’s official website. “But it’s all about us.
“It’s how we come out with energy, positive, forward [thinking]. Adding hopefully our first half against Sunderland [a 1-1 draw this month], second-half against Villa.
“If we can do that, then we’ll put a top performance out there and then we’ll win the game.
“It’s all about how we can get the players out there full of confidence and brave and play forward. Hopefully, that energy and the collaboration between the team and the fans that you felt second-half against Villa, first-half against Sunderland, that is what we need to get more of.
“When you have that, then it is a fantastic place, our fantastic stadium, our home. That is where we need to be. I mean it. Any successful team needs to create a fortress. I know it has been difficult, but that is what we are aiming for.
“The more we do, the more we believe, the more we do together, the better chance we have.”
Nuno Espirito Santo hopes to have Mateus Fernandes back
With these players out or doutbful, who needs to step up against Tottenham?!
In addition to that iconic 3-0 thrashing under Sam Allardyce, West Ham also beat Tottenham away from home in 2019 and again in 2023, when the now out-of-favour James Ward-Prowse struck the winner a few weeks before Christmas.
Mohammed Kudus is unavailable against his former employers due to injury, while Spurs have also lost top-scorer Richarlison and arguably their most-effective central midfield pairing of Rodrigo Bentancur and Lucas Bergvall.
In the other dugout, Nuno is hoping to have Mateus Fernandes available. Konstantinos Mavropanos could miss out, though.
“We are in a tough position but we are fighting to improve our game and the way we play,” Nuno adds. “There were many matches where we played well and didn’t achieve a result, but that [QPR win in the FA Cup] happened at the weekend, so that can be our starting point for what we want to do at Spurs.”
“There are many things [which explain our poor form], not only luck. There are mistakes, mistakes that we can control.
“Let’s avoid talking about referees, but football is a game of fine margins. It’s the ball that hits the post, an offside by two centimetres. We have to work to gain our luck. We have to go and fight for it.
“[Tottenham] is a good team, full of talented players. Always a tough place to go. We expect a very tough match and it’s a rival – it’s a London derby. We are going to have 30,000 fans. What they expect from us is that we put up a good fight, then we’ll see. It’s a tough opponent and we need to have a good result. Our focus is to go there and compete. There is a lot of football to be played, but each game is very, very important for us.”