Son Heung-min celebrated his 150th appearance for Tottenham with two goals as they eased past West Ham in the Carabao Cup.
Fernando Llorente’s left-footed volley confirmed Spurs passage to face north London rivals Arsenal in the quarter-finals, after Lucas Perez had pulled one back for West Ham with a header.
But it was South Korea international Son who stole the show, sweeping Dele Alli’s deft pass into the top corner to open the scoring.
Son then extended Tottenham’s lead in the second-half, rounding West Ham goalkeeper Adrian after capitalising on a mistake from defender Arthur Masuaku.
Colombia defender Davinson Sanchez was the only Tottenham player to start from the side that lost to Manchester City in the Premier League on Monday.
However, manager Mauricio Pochettino will have been encouraged by the performances of Christian Eriksen and in particular, Alli, who played a prominent role in Tottenham’s opening two goals on his first start since the club’s third-round win over Watford on 26 September.
While West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini named a strong side after saying he was taking the competition “very seriously”, it proved a difficult evening for the hosts.
At times the purposeful running of wingers Michail Antonio and academy product Grady Diangana threatened to unlock the Spurs defence but West Ham’s end product lacked precision.
Antonio got into good positions but was twice denied a first half equaliser by visiting goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga.
And it was only when the Hammers went two goals down, and introduced Marko Arnautovic, that they briefly looked capable of engineering a revival.
But while Perez’s header raised the roof inside the London Stadium, West Ham were unable to repeat last term’s EFL Cup heroics, when they came back from a two-goal deficit to defeat Tottenham.
(BBC Sport)
