After the calamity that was Saturday’s collapse at St James’ Park – West Ham United somehow managing to turn a 3-1 lead into a 4-3 loss at the hands of Newcastle – the concerns were understandable as Ange Postecoglou’s sometimes free-scoring Tottenham Hotspur made the short trip to the London Stadium three days later.
Tottenham, before kick-off on Tuesday, had scored only two fewer goals than Manchester City, for instance. They had Brennan Johnson and Timo Werner playing the best football of their admittedly short Spurs careers, and a captain in form after Heung-Min Son scored a dramatic late winner against Luton Town last time out.
But while Johnson and Werner did combine for the opening goal after just four minutes, that Son barely had a meaningful kick over the course of 90 minutes speaks volumes about the much-improved performance of Konstantinos Mavropanos and particularly Kurt Zouma; West Ham’s skipper coming out of on top against his fellow armband-wearer.
West Ham draw with Tottenham as Kurt Zouma shines
It’s been a difficult season for Zouma, looking uncharacteristically vulnerable without his old centre-half partner Craig Dawson.
The Frenchman’s colossal, thou-shalt-not-pass performance up against Son and co felt like a big step in the right direction, then, a stellar rearguard effort ensuring that Johnson’s early opener was as good as things got for Tottenham in a 1-1 draw.
“He did a brilliant job on (Son) tonight,” Moyes tells BBC Sport. “We needed somebody to, we needed a bit of leadership after the weekend’s game. I thought the two centre-halves played really well today.”
Zouma, not content with throwing his body on the line at one end, scored the equaliser at the other. Spurs’ Achilles heel came to the fore again, Zouma converting a corner kick almost off the number four on the back of his shirt.
Hammers respond to Newcastle fiasco
“I genuinely thought we didn’t deserve to go behind,” Moyes adds. “But the players did a good job.
“We had a threat and so did they. (Tottenham) are a good side and that’s why they are challenging for the Champions League. Maybe a draw was the right result in the end.
“I’m sure after the way we played on the weekend, to see the way the defence played (here), we looked much more organised. We had set-pieces, we had chances, so overall hopefully it will give us good confidence.”
Full-backs Vladimir Coufal and Emerson Palmieri also made a couple of key interventions, while Lucas Paqueta and Tomas Soucek were outstanding out of possession too.
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