Tottenham Hotspur v West Ham United: Premier League – live!

11.44am EDT 11:44

14 min In between conceding fine goals from ludicrous defending, West Ham have played pretty well, and Bowen collects the ball sliding through to Antonio, who lunges into a shot. It goes wide, but he was offside anyway.

11.44am EDT 11:44

12 min I’ve no skin in this game, but how not to want to Spurs to score when every time they do, this happens? How long before the players say bun this, I’m off to the kluhrb?

11.42am EDT 11:42

10 min It’s absolutely ridiculous how good Harry Kane is. His most obvious comparator is Shearer, I guess, and though he doesn’t have the same acceleration, he’s a much better passer, smoother technician, and better finisher from 12-22 yards. I’m not sure I’ve seen anyone better from that range.

11.40am EDT 11:40

GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 West Ham United (Kane 8)

Harry Kane! Harry Kane! Harry Kane! Bored of playing as a number 6, Kane appears as a number 10, sliding Bergwijn through. He crosses to the back post and Coufal cranes his entire being to head clear, but Hojbjerg collects, finds Son who finds Kane, and the absolute man megs Rice on the half-turn then drags a brilliant finish inside the near post with Fabianski expecting one towards the far. What an absolute player!

Kane scores Tottenham’s second. Photograph: Matt Dunham/Reuters Kane celebrates. Photograph: Neil Hall/PA

Updated at 11.46am EDT

11.38am EDT 11:38

7 min This is a good response from West Ham, winning a corner which goes to the near post, where Antonio plays Steve Bould, winning the flick on; Sanchez pokes a foot at it, sending the ball across the face and behind, but the ref appraises a goalkick.

11.36am EDT 11:36

5 min But Cresswell has a shy, looking to sweep it around the outside of the wall. It’s not far away, ruffling the side-netting, but Lloris had it covered.

11.35am EDT 11:35

4 min But West Ham win a free-kick 25 yards out, left of centre, and Rice lines one up…

11.34am EDT 11:34

2 min That’s West Ham’s gameplan out of the window then. My guess is they’ll try and stay on the game for now and for the next hour if they can, before changing to a more aggressive formation.

11.33am EDT 11:33

GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 West Ham (Son, 46 seconds!)

Midfield maestro Kane picks up possession not that far outside his own box, and hoddles a ball in behind Balbuena for Son, who latches on, advances into the area, and with intense joy and extreme prejudice, bends a finish past Fanianski towards the far corner! These two!

Son scores the opener for Spurs. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AFP/Getty Images Son celebrates with provider Kane. Photograph: Matthew Ashton – AMA/Getty Images

Updated at 11.47am EDT

11.30am EDT 11:30

I hope the game comes with as much incident as Declan Rice’s barnet.

11.27am EDT 11:27

Here come the teams! Bale is saying something extremely riveting, because he’s put a glove in front of his face so no lip reader can work out its secret. But using my supersense, I can reveal that what he in fact said was “Be Here Now was actually not bad, y’know.”

11.24am EDT 11:24

And here are further details of the Gatwick derby.

Mac Allister’s 90th-minute equaliser earns Brighton a point at Palace

11.23am EDT 11:23

It’s not been a good day for Tottenham Women. They’re currently 6-1 down to Arsenal.

Women’s Super League: Arsenal v Tottenham – live!

11.22am EDT 11:22

Moyes is back from corona, and says his team played well after lockdown and good in pre-season so he’s not surprised they’re doing well now. Looking at their XI, they must be an absolute mare to play against.

11.21am EDT 11:21

I was thinking during the week about the total ridiculousness of Mourinho’s achievements. Save coming second with that dreadful Man United team that had a decent keeper, which is his best achievement of these:

1. Back to back Europa League and Champions League with Porto.

2. Inspiring a team that lasted a generation at Chelsea.

3. Winning the treble at Inter.

4, Taking a league title off the greatest club side ever at Madrid.

11.18am EDT 11:18

David Ferrier has the answer: “The only time the FA Cup left England, won by Cardiff City?”

There it is.

11.17am EDT 11:17

Back to 1927, “Was it that players were limited to a maximum of five cigarettes on the pitch?” wonders Bill Hargreaves.

Woodbines only.

Brazilian football players Dino Sani, Gilmar (Gylmar dos Santos Neves) and Hilderaldo Bellini reading a newspaper with a man on wheelchair who’s the Brazilian team mascot at the 1958 FIFA World Cup. Photograph: Emilio Ronchini/Mondadori via Getty Images Brothers Jack and Bobby Charlton wait in the departure lounge of London airport as England leave for the Mexico World Cup.Photograph: Bob Thomas/Getty Images And just because. Photograph: Ron Case/Getty Images

11.11am EDT 11:11

“Can you explain if Spurs bought Matt Doherty to do anything other than weaken their main rival for a place in next season’s Europa League?” asks Duncan Edwards. “That and mess with my Fantasy Team week in week out.”

He’s good, was cheap, and gives them an option of 3-5-2. It’s also hard not to notice that he’s repped by Jorge Mendes, who also reps Mourinho.

11.10am EDT 11:10

Garry Bale, then. If he’s not lost his gas, he’s one of the best players in the league, though I wonder where he’ll play. I find he looks a bit awkward on the right because he’s a power player not a touch player, so looks more comfortable on his natural side, but Son plays there. I guess they can swap and rotate.

Bale starts on the bench. Photograph: Clive Rose/AP

Updated at 11.22am EDT

11.09am EDT 11:09

Mourinho says that the “message and philosophy we want is here”. He says they don’t talk about top four, or winning a cup, just about the next match, and doesn’t matter where or against who, but they go in order to win. At Old Trafford, they conceded a goal in the first minute and just played their football.

On Bale, he says he has three “incredible attacking players” on the bench, and also references the excellent ones who aren’t involved.

11.02am EDT 11:02

Who can forget this encounter? And go on, a trivia question while we’re here: what was, and remains, unique about the 1927 FA Cup competition?

10.59am EDT 10:59

That said, I’m slightly surprised we’ve not seen more of Bergwijn, who looks a far better player than Moura, has more room for improvement and – crucially for Mourinho’s purposes – is no less unpredictable.

10.57am EDT 10:57

Back to that Spurs XI, my guess is that Bergwijn would’ve come in anyway. Lamela was there to do a particular job at Old Trafford – win the ball off United’s dicky back-four high up the park – but against West Ham, width will be the order of the day, which is why, I imagine, Aurier and Reguilon remain the full-backs. Though Kane and Son are good enough to fashion a goal in all manner of circumstance, the game for Spurs is out wide.

10.53am EDT 10:53

At Selhurst Park, Alexis Mac Allister has just equalised in the … er … checks notes … M23/A23 derby in the final minute. There are, though, seven minutes of injury time to play and whatever happens, both sides can ultimately console themselves with tea at Tasty Jerk next door the ground.

10.49am EDT 10:49

Spurs make two changes from their 6-1 Old Trafford squeak: Eric Dier has a minor hamstring, so Toby Alderweireld comes in, and Erik Lamela is suspended after his red card against Man United injured (I think), so Steven Bergwijn comes in. It’s funny really, given Giovani Lo Celso and Dele Alli are also missing, out of nowhere Spurs look like they’ve got a good squad. Oh and Gary Bale is on the bench, likewise Carlos Vinicius.

Updated at 11.29am EDT

10.39am EDT 10:39

Let’s have some teams…

Tottenham Hotspur (a reanimated 4-3-3): Lloris; Aurier, Alderweireld, Sanchez, Reguilon; Ndombele, Sissoko, Hojbjerg; Bergwijn, Kane, Son. Subs: Hart, Doherty, Davies, Winks, Moura, Vinicius, Bale.

West Ham United (a sophisticate’s 5-4-1): Fabianski; Coufal, Ogbonna, Balbuena, Cresswell, Masuaku; Bowen, Rice, Soucek, Fornals; Antonio. Subs: Randolph, Fredericks, Diop, Noble, Snodgrass, Lanzini, Yarmolenko.

VAR’s straight man: Paul Tierney (Belfast)

5.41am EDT 05:41

Preamble

Football is extremely weird – at the best of times but even more so now. Yet even in such circumstances, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United stand out from the mess, the kid in the playground who turns up for school in an overcoat thinking it makes them classy, and the kid in the playground who turns up in a pink fur thinking it makes them different. Or something like that.

Not that long ago, Spurs looked to be hurtling through the phases of Mourinho at record speed – footage of their performance at Lokomotiv Plovdiv has been censored in some countries – but they muddled through and have been much better since, defensive uncertainty offset by devastating speed in attack. And seduced by the sadism of it all, Jo looks an entirely different manager; the smug is back, and football is all the richer for it.

Similarly, West Ham looked a total state … and then the season started. Their last three league games have seen them lose narrowly to Mikel Arteta’s genius before handing absolute tousings to Wolves and Leicester, feats beyond the majority of teams in the world, never mind the country. With Tomas Soucek and Declan Rice sitting in front of three centre-backs, penetrating them is a miserable task, Michail Antonio is a one-man forward line, and David Moyes looks to have found a real one in Jarrod Bowen. If they can refrain from early collapse, they have more than enough to do something in this one.

All of which is to say that we should be in for an exciting and high-scoring game … or with both teams set up to minimise risk while scoring on the counter, the ball spends 90 minutes on the centre-spot. Definitely one of the two.

Kick-off: 4.30pm BST

Updated at 9.56am EDT