It's happened again...

Tottenham Hotspur 1 West Ham 2 

The Number 8 pub is heaving with Spurs fans before the game where we drink N17 and have to listen to choruses of "When the Spurs go marching in." 

Agents Nigel and myself are among the Spurs fans behind the goal thanks to Nigel's mate Andy, both having had to borrow non-claret hats from our wives. Though Nigel is wearing his lucky West Ham socks.

It's my first visit to Spurs new stadium, which is indeed impressive, though it could do with a running track. Fabianski is in for the injured Areola and Zouma is back for the Hammers. Matt and Lisa are in Marseille on a mini-break and watching Match of Ze Day in the British Lounge Pub.

The first half is one-way traffic as Spurs' free-flowing football puts West Ham under endless pressure. After 11 minutes Romero gets between two defenders to score with a looping header from a corner. It looks like being a long evening. Johnson is causing problems for Coufal, though from our position we get to appreciate the work Alvarez does intercepting danger and shielding the defence. 

Fabianski has to tip over a rasping shot from Lo Celso and then Zouma turns Johnson's cross on to the outside of his post. Johnson fires rather tamely at Fabianski when through on the left but Spurs don't really create that many clear-cut chances

There's a brief flurry from West Ham before the break as Kudus gets in a great cross that Paqueta, in lots of space, heads wide of the post. In the concourse we anticipate a miserable walk back along Tottenham High Road after the game though Andy says that at one-nil anything could still happen.

West Ham start the second half with much more intensity coming forward. Seven minutes into the half Bowen does well to shield the ball from two defenders and find Kudus. Mo's shot ricochets off two defenders and into the path of Bowen who has run into the box. Jarrod lifts it past the keeper and runs to the joyous away fans. Nigel has to restrain himself in our Spurs seats. That was the bit of luck we needed. 

"Champions of Europe, you'll never sing that!" sing the West Ham fans."F**king West Ham muppets with their Johnstone Paint trophy!" mutters the Spurs fan behind me.

At 1-1 Spurs sub Richarlison heads a good chance wide and Porro forces a good save from Fabianski. But Moyes' rope-a-dope tactics pay off. Spurs look to have punched themselves out and there are spaces behind Spurs high-line defence. A good passing move ends with Paqueta shooting rather tamely at the keeper.

On 74 minutes Udogie plays a blind back-pass to Vicario. Bowen has anticipated it and the keeper can only punch out to James Ward-Prowse. His first shot hits the post but James follows up for a tap-in as the offside Bowen runs out of the way. Prowsey runs to the away fans and does his golf shot celebration. Blimey. It's Cavaliers 1 Roundheads 2. It's all gone very Spursy indeed.

"It's happened again!" announce the gleeful Irons fans. There's a nervy 20 minutes to get through but the five subs Postecoglou throws on make little difference, On 89 minutes West Ham force a corner and Vicario has to claw Soucek's header off the line. Extra time is tense as VAR checks for a possible Zouma handball but that's Spurs only real chance. There seems to be a fire drill to judge by the empty seats around us. 

The lads dig in for a great smash and grab away win. There's dancing in the pubs of Marseille. Nigel even predicts that we're staying up. And it's a much happier walk along Tottenham High Road in the wet than we anticipated. Irons!

PLAYER RATINGS: Fabianski 6; Coufal 6. Zouma 7, Aguerd 6, Emerson 6; Alvarez 7, Ward-Prowse 8, Soucek 6, Paqueta 6; Kudus 7 (Fornals n/a), Bowen 8.

There's only one Konstantinos Mavropanos

West Ham have made a massive signing - in terms of letters at least. Konstantinos Mavropanos at around £20m from Stuttgart is the first ever Greek international at West Ham. Dinos, as he is nicknamed, was a cult hero at his former club and scored some cracking long-range goals. And the defender had eight games at Arsenal in the PL as a 20-year-old before being loaned out. Better to take a punt on a Greek bewaring gifts than on Maguire, who never seemed to fancy  playing for the Irons.

While Mavropanos has to have the longest combined name of any West Ham player ever. My pal Matt is going to get his name on his replica shirt once the IMF approve the loan. While I'd say Demba Ba is probably the player with the shortest surname ever to play for the Hammers. Not that any of us like trivia. 

A striker on the way?

We're still striker light, with Moyes' search seemingly taking longer than Lord of the Rings, though the Irons are after Chelsea's Armando Broja, who really troubled the WHU defence with his pace last season. It's also reported that West Ham have put in a £34m offer for Sassuolo's Gianlucca Scamacca, who sounds like he could be part of the lyrics of Bohemian Rhapsody, and is an Italian international. Macca would be an easy nickname, which is always worth considering when making a signing.

Two extra strikers would be ideal, though you do wonder if the Hammers are being too ambitious in their targets. Phillips and Raphina were never likely to leave Leeds for West Ham in January (and ended up at Man City and Barcelona) while another reported target, Darwin Nunez, held out of a move to Liverpool this summer. Chelsea might yet want to keep Broja, so perhaps a hungry striker from the Championship, like Blackburn's Ben Brereton Diaz, might yet be our best option. Though if we do get Broja, even on loan, it would certainly be exciting.

So farewell Havard

The departure of Havard Nordtveit gets five lines in today's Guardian. The Norway midfielder has signed for Hoffenheim for an undisclosed fee. Havard was mainly played as an emergency right-back and never looked comfortable there, while Obiang and Kouyate were much better options in midfield. 

Nordtveit actually had a decent game in the must-win game against Swansea when he was played in his proper midfield position, but he was always an odd signing. A squad player when what WHU needed was quality. Now Bilic is clearing out the dead Norwegian wood. Nordtveit seemed to be a good pro and he came into a chaotic side, but he was one of the players we needed to sell to free up wages for a (hopefully) quality signing.

Should stadium security be such a big story?

West Ham are rightly banning 200 fans identified as throwing missiles and confronting the Chelsea fans on Wednesday, and hopefully Chelsea will do the same to their offenders. But the press do seem to be making a lot out of the stadium security story. Does it warrant two and a half pages in the Guardian and three pages in the Sun and Daily Telegraph? The security line did hold and there was no actual fighting, while outside the ground trouble appears to have been largely prevented. The scenes shown on TV looked terrible, but the riot police moved in within 60 seconds and the idiots doing the taunting and throwing will be easily identified on the closed circuit TV pictures. Yet now we have rent-a-quote MPs suggesting the ground should be shut.

There's also a press myth that there has been constant trouble among the 57,000 fans at the London Stadium. The four arrests against Middlesbrough are often cited, though two of these were apparently for touting and smoking cannabis and that's a lot fewer arrests than we used to get at Upton Park. There was very limited trouble between a few home fans over standing up at the FC Astra and Watford games and some problems with holding the segregation line against Watford, but that's it. 

Manchester City fans smashed up the sinks in the away end at Old Trafford on Wednesday and it gets much less coverage. There's been trouble at other grounds and last season's Europa League Final that has mostly gone unreported. I've seen punch-ups and riot police round the back of the old East Stand at Upton Park on many a night. Remember the Millwall League Cup game? It wasn't a haven of tranquility. Could it be that some sectors of the press resent the public funding that has gone into the London Stadium and want it to fail?

Though it's fair to say that there are problems with the design of the stadium. At present it seems you can walk all the way around it and it needs more effective barriers between the stands. The area of empty seats between the home and away fans didn't work either, as the fans involved in the trouble simply ran across it. The stewarding has to improve and LS185 is at least using more experienced football stewards now. The police will get their Airwave radio soon which will improve security. We should also remember that Wednesday night was a cup game with many people attending who are not season ticket holders. At league games the club should know exactly who is seated next to the away fans and be able to confiscate the season tickets of any miscreants. 

And yes, the fans too have to accept their share of responsibility for behaving well. There were always going to be problems in the first season at the new stadium; but separating the home and away fans should not be insurmountable, nor should excluding the small minority of West Ham fans who still want some 1970-style aggro.

Always believe in Carlton Cole?

Hardly an endorsement of our tactics and management from Carlton Cole in today's Daily Mirror.

Carlton says: "It was diabolical... we didn't even turn up for this game, In the first ten minutes we had lost the game - psychologically at least.

"I think I had just one cross. Apart from that I had nothing and as a striker that's starvation. The game plan was for me to play as the furthest person away from everyone else and hit me on the diagonal or something, but we weren't even doing that. So that went out of the window and we didn't have a plan B.

"We didn't have anyone driving forward. You can't fit a circle into a square hole so how can you try? I just don't understand that. I'm deflated, I'm not happy and I hope something can happen ASAP."

One bit sounds familiar: "I can only remember one time the ball came to me and I sort of miscontrolled it,but we still retained possession. then I looked to my left and there was no one attacking."

Meanwhile the Gullivan Brothers have branded Wigan as the "Save our season" match, which will only add to the pressure on our players and means if we lose they'll give up. Oh and Noble's out for a month after damaging a hamstring.

Nurse, the screens.