Son Heung-min seals win against West Ham to take Tottenham into top four

What a difference 15 minutes can make. For half of this affair a bad week showed the potential to deteriorate further for Tottenham, who had laboured against a similarly uninspired West Ham and showed nothing to enthuse the recuperating Antonio Conte as he watched from home. But a quarter of an hour inside with his deputy, Cristian Stellini, brought a team transformed: Spurs were strong, aggressive and smart in the second period and deservedly won with two fine goals.

Emerson Royal scored a superbly worked first and it will do no harm that Son Heung-min, relegated to the bench, added his first league strike since 4 January within four minutes of coming on. Spurs return to the Champions League places and perhaps this was something of a reset; for David Moyes, the spectre of relegation was made no fainter by an ultimately bland display.

Neither starting lineup had screamed of adventure. Moyes had to do without the injured Lucas Paquetá and also dropped Saïd Benrahma, replacing the pair with the workmanlike qualities of Tomas Soucek and Flynn Downes. Spurs’ management team had selected Richarlison ahead of Son in a side bereft of obvious guile behind its front three. Ben Davies, usually picked as a centre-back under Conte, was deployed further wide.

There was a snap to the early proceedings, though, and it would have brought a goal within the first minute if Jarrod Bowen had found his bearings. He was alone on the edge of the D after Soucek helped the ball across but half-volleyed a yard wide of Fraser Forster’s left post; it was a half chance but indicated West Ham had not travelled simply to spoil.

They continued to set the pace, winning two corners within five minutes. Shortly after the second of them, Soucek won