What a difference 15 minutes can make. For half of this affair a bad week showed the potential to deteriorate further for Tottenham, who had laboured against a similarly uninspiring West Ham and showed nothing to enthuse the recuperating Antonio Conte as he watched from home. But a quarter of an hour inside with his deputy, Cristian Stellini, brought a team transformed: Spurs were strong, aggressive and smart in the second period and deservedly won with two fine goals.
Emerson Royal scored a superbly worked first and it will do no harm that Son Heung-min, relegated to the bench, added his first league strike since 4 January within four minutes of coming on. Spurs return to the Champions League places and perhaps this was something of a reset; for David Moyes, the spectre of relegation was made no fainter by an ultimately bland display.
