West Ham United's Europa League heroics caught up with them on a disappointing afternoon in north London.
The exertions of Thursday night's marathon tie with Sevilla appeared to have taken its toll on David Moyes' already stretched squad as they laboured to defeat at White Hart Lane, against a Spurs side that had the advantage of an extra day's rest and having not featured in an exhausting 'winner-takes-all' cup tie.Moyes rang the changes, as much as he could with the likes of Angelo Ogbonna, Vladimir Coufal and Jarrod Bowen absent through injury, going with a three-man defence.
However it proved ineffective as the hosts scored twice inside the opening 25 minutes via a Kurt Zouma own goal and a second from Son Heung-min.
Having regrouped and rallied after that dreadful start, the Hammers fought their way back into the game and halved the deficit ten minutes before half time when Said Benrahma steered home a deflected Craig Dawson header from Aaron Creswell's corner.
Michail Antonio, who was perhaps the most visibly affected by Thursday's marathon session against Sevilla should've levelled the scores on 56 minutes when set up by Cresswell, before getting his lines all wrong and blazing over the bar with tthe goal at his mercy.
Thereafter the tiring Hammers failed to trouble Spurs to any degreee and in the end the final goal of the game went to Son, who capitalised on a rare error between Craig Dawson and Zouma to race through and slip the ball beyond Lukasz Fabianski.
The defeat saw West Ham drop below Tottenham and down to seventh in the table.
Meanwhile the forthcoming two-week international break will no doubt be welcomed by Moyes and those of his players not preparing for international duty, ahead of the next Premier League outing against a struggling Everton.
West Ham Utd: Fabianski, Johnson, Dawson, Zouma, Cresswell, Masuaku (Fornals 56), Soucek, Rice, Lanzini (Vlasic 84), Benrahma, Antonio (Yarmolenko 56)
Subs not used: Areola, Fredericks, Diop, Noble, Krzl, Perkins
Goals: Benrahma (35)
Booked: Dawson (23)
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Romero, Dier, Davies, Doherty, Betancur, Hojbjerg, Reguilon (Royal 88), Kulusevski (Bergwijn 90), Son (Moura 90), Kane
Subs not used: Gollini, Sanchez, Rodon, Winks, White, Bergwijn, Scarlett
Goals: Zouma (9 og), Son (24, 88)
Referee: Anthony Taylor
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