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

It has become almost impossible to guess which face Spurs will show so this was, for those invested in their fortunes, an evening of welcome stability. An ultimately routine win brought appreciable rewards: it put them in the top four for the first time since New Year’s Eve and, seemingly despite themselves, Tottenham find their season wide open. Antonio Conte will not have liked watching from home after his brief return to touchline duty but he still had his say and there was plenty to take from an aggressive, insistent, smart second-half performance that bore no relation to what had passed earlier.

Their fans enjoyed imploring Emerson Royal to shoot whenever the ball reached him after the oft-derided wing-back opened the scoring, his goal the product of an incisive combination with his left-sided colleague Ben Davies. But the supporters took even more pleasure from a player who is far likelier to take aim.

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Son Heung-min had been demoted to the bench in another suggestion Spurs have been unable to count on him as usual this season. He scored his first league goal since 4 January four minutes after coming on, the smiles indicating exactly what that meant, and if it sets a tone for the next three months then this may yet have been a transformative occasion.

“We knew Sonny’s response would be perfect because he’s a perfect guy,” said Cristian Stellini, the Tottenham assistant manager, suggesting the player had not been fully fit since the World Cup and needed managing carefully. “You have to take a decision. It’s difficult with a player like Sonny but we have to do it because we have a lot of matches and the risk is that you lose a player for a long time.”

What a disappointment this was, in the end, for a West Ham side that must have fancied their chances at the interval. They had been focused during a largely turgid first half and arguably enjoyed the best of what passed for its openings. But a loose five minutes after re-emerging dug them into a hole from which they never emerged. Errors from Nayef Aguerd and Declan Rice had brought chances for Richarlison, who started in Son’s place, and Harry Kane. Lax play from Vladimir Coufal set another dangerous Spurs attack in motion and, while West Ham survived, it was clear something had shifted.

Spurs, by contrast, were far removed from the ponderous outfit whose only serious first-half threat had come right at the end when Richarlison, sent away but slightly wide by Kane, made Lukasz Fabianski save with his legs. Their starting XI had looked workmanlike, Davies and Emerson hardly dynamic attacking presences on the face of things while Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Oliver Skipp grafted in the middle. So it was that, in the 56th minute, they issued a reminder not to judge a book by its cover.