FIVE things we learnt about the Hammers against Spurs

At the time of writing, my heart rate is racing. I think I just saw our season physically pick itself up off of the ground and turn itself around. That was an incredible result from the Hammers and you know what, we earned it. Here are five things that I’ve decided are facts from our outstanding game against the team formerly known as the yi… uh, I mean Tottenham Hotspur (that was close.)

Fact: it is actually preferable to have zero strikers than to have Modibo Maiga out there. I do feel for the guy as he’s struggled up there alone all season, but the truth is that today had a much better plan. Putting an excess of midfielders (because to be honest, that’s exactly what we have at the club) as rotating forwards was an excellent idea- it was clever, unusual (for us anyway), and it worked. Spurs weren’t able to mark half as well as they normally could as our movement was very smooth and unpredictable. The element of surprise was what won us the game today. Turns out Big Sam can think outside the box, and not just in a never getting the ball into the box kind of way; wonderful news.

Fact: Ravel Morrison is worth that buy out clause and more. I had my reservations about him coming to Upton Park based on his former reputation, but my gosh has he begun to mature into an incredible player. This week he reportedly slapped a £19million buy-out clause in his contract, and do I think he’s going to be worth it? Absolutely. This 20 year old is proving to be an incredible talent, and his cool calm finish today was fantastic.

Fact: We actually saw some good refereeing today, and I think Lee Probert deserves credit for a good performance. This is the first time in ages that I’ve seen an intense, skilful game of football that was not ruined by the constant blowing of a whistle or overshadowed by terrible decisions (I’m looking at you Friend and Mason.) We saw a well-matched, well-fought game today that completely flowed, with 3 goals and zero cards. Zero, as in the same number of goals Spurs scored. It’s possible, and well done to you, Lee Probert.

Fact: James Tomkins has earned his place over James Collins. Collins has properly saved us with some brilliant tackles in the first few games, but Tomkins has grown into a strong defender who offers more creativity moving forward. We play better through the middle when we’ve got the ball on the ground, and he offers that to us. He also still looks likely to score, and is strong in the air.

Fact: Even though we won today, we (the fans) weren’t wrong to be negative about the games up until now. The start to the season has been poor, especially compared to what we saw today, and I don’t think people were wrong to have been negative about previous results. If we can play this well on one occasion, we should be playing this well all the time. Today Sam showed us a different and successful way of playing, and not a minute too soon. We’re now sitting 13th, which is great, but is beating Spurs today going to guarantee us a top ten finish? No, of course not, but it’s a great place to start. We need to figure out how to play like this again and again- not just against Everton and Spurs, but against Hull, Stoke, Southampton, et all. This was an absolutely brilliant result, we absolutely can repeat this again and, personally, I cannot stop grinning.

Fortune’s always hiding; not today it wasn’t. Come on you irons!

Tweet me @makingthemarrow