Fans react as report suggests Tottenham will have to ‘do a West Ham’ next season

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There is no love lost between Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United but they may have something in common next season.

Tottenham and West Ham are two rivals heading in very different directions these days.

Mauricio Pochettino has turned Spurs into one of the most exciting teams in Europe against the backdrop of a fitting new ground being built to showcase their attractive football.

Meanwhile Hammers fans are planning a protest march against the club’s owners after growing fed up of broken promises over their own ill-fated move to the former Olympic Stadium, transfer spending and ambition.

The owners pledged to splash the cash at the new ground to enable the East Londoners to compete with the Premier League elite but that has failed to materialise and the club are instead fighting relegation and sitting just three points above the drop zone.

One big bone of contention for West Ham supporters this season has been the fact the team were forced to play their first four games of the season away from home as the London Stadium was being used for athletics.

That was despite promises from vice-chairman Karren Brady that West Ham fixtures would always take priority when they left behind their beloved Boleyn Ground home of 112 years.

While Spurs will never have such issues as outright owners of their own home ground, they will have something in common with the Hammers next season if a report in the Independent is anything to by.

The report states that Spurs are set to play the first ‘three or four’ games of the next Premier League season away from the new White Hart Lane stadium, as the final touches are added to the ground.

The switch means Spurs’ first Premier League game at the new stadium will be in September 2018, rather than when the season begins on 11 August.

The Independent says chairman Daniel Levy confirmed in a meeting with the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust held on 20 February that Spurs were “likely” to request to play the “first few matches” of next season away, as had always been Spurs’ plan. Tottenham are still very confident that they will be at the new White Hart Lane for next season.

That was exactly the scenario facing then West Ham boss Slaven Bilic at the start of this season. It worried supporters given West Ham’s questionable away record over the years.

And those fears had foundation as they promptly lost their first three Premier League games at Manchester United, Southampton and Newcastle United.

There was some respite with a with a 2-0 Carabao Cup win over Cheltenham Town but the league defeats put West Ham and Bilic under enormous pressure from the off.

It was a pressure which eventually told with Bilic getting sacked in November.

So it seems Spurs are set to ‘do a West Ham’ next season with their fixtures but Pochettino will be keen to avoid replicating how their rivals dealt with that situation on the pitch.