Tottenham Hotspur vs West Ham tips and predictions: Goals galore as struggling London clubs clash

Nick Krige
6 December 2023

Tottenham Hotspur will be looking to shore up things at the back when they welcome West Ham United to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for a Premier League clash on Thursday night (2015 GMT).

While Spurs did not win their previous Premier League fixture, the squad will feel like they did after coming from behind twice to earn a 3-3 draw against Manchester City.

However, defending is still clearly an area of concern for the North London club, who have not managed to keep a clean sheet since a 2-0 win over Fulham on 23 October.

To put their issues at the back into perspective, even though they go into their match against West Ham six points and four places above the Hammers in the Premier League, they have only conceded four fewer goals.

Spurs' only real solution so far has been to throw bodies forward and hope to score more than the opposition does and while it worked a treat at the start of the campaign the wheels have begun to come off a bit in recent weeks.

Tottenham are on a run of four games without a win and their last-gasp equaliser against City saved them from losing four in a row in the Premier League.

West Ham also have their fair share of issues at the back and their last clean sheet in the Premier League was against Sheffield United in late September, but they have put in a couple of much better defensive performances more recently in the Europa League.

Regardless, if there is one thing you should expect from this game it's goals.

Historically speaking, the Irons do not fare well in North London having won just two of their last 21 Premier League games away from home against Spurs and have not won at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium since becoming the first visiting team ever to do so in April 2019.

Spurs manager Ange Postecolgou will also be hoping to avoid an unwanted record in that he has not lost three consecutive home games since his time with Yokohama F. Marinos in Japan.

West Ham boss David Moyes, on the other hand, will want to prevent his 15th Premier League loss against Spurs, which would equal a record held by Sam Allardyce.

There is no doubt the visitors are in better form than Tottenham going into the game and they will be looking to get on top of their hosts early to rattle nerves that are already very frayed.

Team News

Tottenham still have half a Premier League team in the treatment room with Rodrigo Bentancur, Micky van de Ven, Ivan Perisic, Eric Dier, James Maddison, Manor Soloman and Pape Matar Sarr all still unavailable.

There is one piece of good news for the home team, though, as Cristian Romero returns from his three-game suspension for a red card.

Michail Antonio is still out for the Hammers and Kurt Zouma is doubtful after experiencing a robbery at his family home during the week but Jarrod Bowen is back in contention for a starting berth.