West Ham United play their the second of three home games in the space of seven days on Sunday – and it’s a truly mouthwatering one with Tottenham Hotspur coming to town.
David Moyes’ men welcome their local rivals to east London looking to make it three wins in a row following impressive victories over Everton and KRC Genk on their return from the October international break.
The two Premier League meetings with Tottenham are always ones to look out for at the start of the season, and Sunday’s game is sure to be no different.
Last year, the Hammers came back from 3-0 down to score three times in the final eight minutes and secure an incredible 3-3 draw at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, before goals from Michail Antonio and Jesse Lingard gave them a 2-1 win in the return fixture.
Tottenham’s form has been up, down and then up again at the start of this campaign, as three consecutive wins to kick-off the season was followed by an equal number of defeats.
But they appear to have got back on track, in new manager Nuno Espirito Santo’s first term in charge, by bouncing back from derby defeat to Arsenal with successive victories over Aston Villa and Newcastle United.
That leaves them with 15 points from their opening eight games, one more than the Hammers and four fewer than league leaders Chelsea.
It means Sunday’s game is nicely poised as Moyes and the Hammers look to lay down an early-season marker.
Ticket News
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How to follow
Sunday's kick-off is at 2pm, and will be broadcast live in the UK by Sky Sports. If you live overseas you might also able to watch the game live, and broadcast listings in your territory can be found here.
We will also be covering the game live with a blog and audio commentary on whufc.com and our Official App and across our social media channels, with goals, highlights and exclusive reaction to follow after the final whistle.
Team News
Michail Antonio is expected to return to the West Ham United squad for Sunday’s game after being rested for Thursday’s UEFA Europa League victory over KRC Genk.
David Moyes confirmed that there were no injury worries over the No9, who has six goals to his name this season already, and his game time was merely being managed during a busy period of the campaign.
Ryan Fredericks and Mark Noble both returned from injury to make substitute appearances against the Belgians, but Vladimír Coufal remains a doubt with a groin problem.
Alex Král is absent after returning a positive COVID-19 test, but could come back into the fold in the middle of next week.
For Spurs, Matt Doherty is out with a knock, while Ryan Sessegnon is suffering with a hamstring injury, but the likes of Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Hugo Lloris should all return after not featuring in Thursday’s UEFA Europa Conference League defeat to Vitesse Arnhem.
The opposition
It is just two-and-a-half years since Tottenham Hotspur opened their state-of-the-art stadium and competed in the UEFA Champions League final.
A miraculous run to Madrid, which included dramatic victories over Manchester City and Ajax, encapsulated a thrilling period under the management of Mauricio Pochettino that saw Spurs finish in the Premier League’s top four in four straight seasons between 2016-19.
While a trophy famously eluded Pochettino’s Tottenham – they were beaten 2-0 by Liverpool in that Champions League final and were denied a maiden Premier League title by Chelsea in 2016/17, despite losing just four matches – there was a sense that the north Londoners had established themselves among English football’s top clubs for years to come.
That feeling was compounded when Tottenham opened their eponymous new stadium in April 2019, replacing their historic White Hart Lane home with a £1billion venue featuring 62,850 seats and a range of eye-catching features.
But that Champions League final defeat – and stadium move – turned out to be a sliding doors moment for Spurs, whose fortunes have seemingly taken a downward turn since.
Pochettino departed six months later after a disappointing run of results and was replaced by José Mourinho.
Initially, the Portuguese had a positive impact, but soon things turned sour, with a UEFA Champions League exit at the hands of German side RB Leipzig, early domestic cup exits and a relatively disappointing sixth-place Premier League finish in 2019/20.
Mourinho continued last season but, despite guiding the club to the EFL Cup final, he departed in April this year with Spurs seventh in the Premier League and having suffered a second-leg collapse to lose to Dinamo Zagreb in the UEFA Europa League round of 16.
Former player Ryan Mason was appointed as caretaker manager, but the EFL Cup final ended in defeat by Manchester City and Tottenham ended the season in seventh, missing out on Champions League or Europa League football.
This past summer was then dominated by two distracting storylines.
The first focused on who would be appointed to manage Tottenham, with a succession of names being linked to the job before the club settled on the appointment of former Wolverhampton Wanderers boss Nuno Espírito Santo as their new head coach in June.
The second surrounded star striker Harry Kane, with the England captain reportedly eager to leave north London after over a decade of prolific service.
The 28-year-old was reportedly promised verbally that he could leave his boyhood club, with Manchester City allegedly his most likely destination, but when the transfer window closed Kane remained a Tottenham player.
With the transfer window closed for now, the job of Nuno, Kane and recently-appointed Director of Football Fabio Paratici – recruited from Juventus – is to steer Spurs back into the top four.
However, two-and-a-half years on from that Champions League final, that job is a big one.
Previous Meetings
West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur have met 50 times in the Premier League, with Spurs winning 24 to the Hammers' 16, while ten matches have been drawn.
Michail Antonio opened the scoring when the Hammers defeated Tottenham 2-1 at London Stadium in the most-recent meeting in February and the No9 has now scored five goals in ten appearances for West Ham against Spurs.
West Ham have twice beaten Tottenham by a three-goal margin in the Premier League – a 4-1 victory in April 1994 and a 3-0 win in October 2013 – with both victories coming away from home in north London.
The Irons have twice beaten Spurs 2-0 in home Premier League meetings, in March 2003 and May 2014.
David Moyes has faced Tottenham on no fewer than 31 occasions as a manager, winning eight, drawing ten and losing 13.
No Room for Racism
All Premier League matches taking place between 16 and 24 October will be dedicated to No Room For Racism, as the League and clubs continue to urge fans to challenge and report discriminatory behaviour wherever they see it.
The video reminds supporters that the introduction of League-wide sanctions at the start of the 2021/22 season means that anybody found guilty of racist abuse, whether it occurs within stadiums or online, will be permanently banned from all Premier League grounds. Enhanced training for matchday stewards is helping ensure they are equipped to respond to discriminatory abuse and assist in gathering evidence to ban perpetrators.
The Premier League continues to work alongside other authorities and organisations within the game to tackle online hate, lobbying Government and challenging social media companies to eliminate abuse on their platforms.
Through its online reporting system, the League supports any players, managers and their families who receive discriminatory abuse. A dedicated team investigates cases to identify perpetrators, with legal action taken when required. Since 2019, the Premier League has been proactively monitoring social media platforms and has reported thousands of items of abusive content to social media companies for removal.
For more information on the Premier League’s No Room For Racism Action Plan, our education resources and for guidance on how to report racism, visit: www.premierleague.com/norroomforracism.
Match Officials
Referee: Paul Tierney
Assistant Referees: Constantine Hatzidakis and Neil Davies
Fourth Official: Peter Bankes
Video Assistant Referee: Jared Gillet
Assistant Video Assistant Referee: Neil Hopton
40-year-old Paul Tierney takes the whistle for Sunday’s derby clash with Tottenham Hotspur.
The Wigan-born official has been a Premier League referee since the 2014/15 season and has taken charge of two showpiece matches at Wembley Stadium – the 2019 Championship Play-off final between Aston Villa and Derby County, and last year’s Carabao Cup final between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur.
He has refereed the Hammers on ten previous occasions, with his last West Ham assignment being the extra-time 1-0 defeat to Manchester United in the FA Cup fifth round last term.
Tierney was also in the middle for that unforgettable 3-3 draw at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in October last year, when Manuel Lanzini’s last-gasp strike secured an incredible point.
West Ham have won two of those ten games under Tierney’s charge, with five draws and three defeats.