West Ham vs Tottenham: The Premier League game that really didn’t matter (and felt like it)

Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United have shared a particular, fierce, and very local rivalry for almost 130 years now. It started when Thames Ironworks, West Ham’s forerunners, came to Tottenham in the Thames and Medway League in September 1898. They kept bumping into each other in the Southern League, the Western League, and the London League, before settling on the Football League and meeting there for the first time in 1920.

And yet of all the 225 meetings between these two clubs over the last 127 years, this particular edition, right here in the fourth decade of the Premier League, surely felt the least like what this fixture is meant to be.

Think about the rich history of this contest, the unique memories it has provided over the years. Think about the qualities you would expect to see in any match between Tottenham and West Ham. The tension, the passion, the competition, the emotion, the aggression, the plot twists, the drama, the noise, the sense, above all, that the players were channelling this rivalry, making it real through their own quality and bravery and the pitch; none of this at all was remotely detectable here at the London Stadium on 4 May, 2025.

This was a shrug of a football match, a profound non-event that will leave no trace on anyone’s memories. It had none of the rhythms of a real game. The two first-half goals arrived out of nowhere. One from Mathys Tel pressing Max Kilman and forcing an error. The second from West Ham constructing the only incisive passing move of the entire game. But those were the only two ripples in an otherwise totally placid sea.

The second half was such an eventless drift towards the final whistle that it was almost soothing to watch. There was none of the jeopardy that keeps you on the edge of your seat as the clock ticks towards 90. Ultimately, it felt like a money-spinning post-season friendly in a faraway place, but just one that, for some reason, was taking place in east London during the regular season.

We could talk all day about how bad this game was, the things it so obviously lacked. Doing so may be the only way to preserve it in our memories. The more interesting point is why was this game so bad? Was this just a random malfunction, like a piece of equipment misfiring? Or was this non-contest in fact hardwired?

Clearly, this was never going to be a match of dazzlingly high quality. West Ham and Spurs had 36 and 37 points respectively from their 34 games played before this one. They are the two worst teams out of the relegation zone. If you take the three relegated sides as being a separate category, Premier League teams in name only, then Spurs and West Ham are the worst of the core 17. Even worse than Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United.

This was not even West Ham against this version of Spurs at their best. This was West Ham against Spurs with eight changes. Ange Postecoglou has been rotating to keep his players maximally fit and fresh for the Europa League. It is impossible to blame him for doing so because of the rewards on offer in that competition. And with Spurs now two games from lifting the trophy, you can say that his policy has almost paid out. But when he makes eight changes for a league game — as he also did for Spurs’ game at Liverpool last Sunday — he is obviously replacing his best players with less good ones.

But this is not only about the aggregate quality of the two line-ups. If quality was the only reason to watch football, then no one would go and watch lower-league football. But people have always loved football at all levels. What is lacking in quality can often be made up in competitive tension, drama, and stakes.

And yet today the stakes were zero. The unbalanced nature of this Premier League campaign has seen the three promoted sides all fail to ever get a footing in the league, cut adrift from the start. Just as it was very clear early on that West Ham and Spurs were having disappointing league seasons, it was also clear early on that they were under no threat of the drop. They were never going to be seriously competing with Ipswich Town. And yet, they were never going to catch the more competent mid-table sides. They are stuck in the limbo league of the mid-teens.

When Spurs won 4-1 at Ipswich on 22 February, it was clear that they would be staying in the Premier League, and there was no longer any fear of seeing Ipswich in the rear-view mirror. Ever since then, it has felt as if the Europa League had priority. And most league games since then have almost felt like a contractual obligation to get through, a kickabout to keep the players sharp and tuned-up before their next big European match. This was Spurs’ ninth league game since Portman Road. They have taken five points, their only win coming against Southampton at home. Their best performance from those nine games came against Nottingham Forest at home, when they were 2-0 down after 16 minutes and could only get back to 2-1.

But at least in some of those games Spurs have been playing a team with something of their own to go for, whether Forest, Liverpool or Fulham. There has been a competitive incentive, albeit only on one side. The problem here was that these were two teams with nothing to play for, two teams just trying to get through the afternoon unscathed. Pitting this West Ham side against Spurs’ back-ups in a league game right now is the football equivalent of repeatedly multiplying zero by itself.

Cresswell preparing to take a throw-in (Benjamin Cremel/AFP via Getty Images)

And yet the reality for Spurs is that they fly to Norway on Wednesday, and all of this will be forgotten. If their full-strength team gets a result against Bodo/Glimt — or even loses by one goal — then they will be in the Europa League final on 21 May.

That will feel like the opposite of this — memorable, meaningful, historic, the sort of game that justifies and makes sense of a lifetime of being a football fan. Win or lose, no one will say on Wednesday that Spurs should have picked a full-strength team at London Stadium. Postecoglou’s decisions have already been justified.

West Ham have none of that to fall back on this month. No other baskets to put their eggs in, no excuses for jogging through a game so important to their fans. They only have three matches left this season now, and then a long summer ahead. They will need, as Spurs do, to be sharper and stronger next year. And maybe the next time these two teams meet, there will at least be a spark, a glimmer of something, anything to make their next meeting different from this.

(Top photo: Benjamin Cremel/AFP via Getty Images)

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