Jan Vertonghen-7.5
It was another solid effort for Tottenham’s “other” Belgian defender. He marshaled the back four with great effect and deserves credit for a pretty solid outing.
Of course, the high point of his match was his last-ditch challenge against Dimitri Payet. It was truly a spectacular tackle. If he were to get it wrong, Payet either scores or earns a penalty. Instead, he got it spot on and kept the Frenchman from troubling Lloris.
Eric Dier-7
I’ve been quite critical of Dier this season, but he played a pretty solid match against the Hammers. I’d still like to see him be more of an aerial presence, but that’s a relatively minor concern.
Frankly, his long diagonals were dangerous weapons for Spurs on the evening. If Christian Eriksen would have checked his run even for an instant in the match’s opening minutes, we’d be celebrating Dier’s excellent assist for an opening goal for the Dane.
Danny Rose-6.5
It wasn’t Rose’s best day in a Tottenham shirt. He let Antonio get away from him a few times, and really didn’t make anything happen on the offensive end of the pitch.
To make things worse, he picked up his fifth yellow card which will force him to miss next weekend’s match against Chelsea. That could force Pochettino to make a pretty dramatic tactical shift given Ben Davies’ injury. Rose wasn’t bad, he just wasn’t up to his usual high standard versus the Hammers.
Kyle Walker-6.5
Walker’s performance on the night largely mirrored the way Rose played. He wasn’t necessarily poor, but he didn’t do anything to really help propel the side to victory.
He does get some credit for making sure Aaron Cresswell didn’t have any joy in the Tottenham half. That isn’t exactly the stuff of legends, but things could have been worse for the English right back.