Spurs fizzled and disappointed again at the home of West Ham, writes MATT BARLOW, as David Moyes takes a well-deserved point after resisting the urge to send Kalvin Phillips on

Tottenham has not warmed up to the Olympic Park. The last time they won here was the opening game of Jose Mourinho’s tenure, with Amazon’s cameras rolling behind the scenes to see if his special powers could extend to rekindling Dele Alli’s flame.

That turned out not to be the case. And four years and three managers later, as Adam Peaty led a parade of Paris Games hopefuls past the pool at the nearby Aquatics Centre, they made the short journey to Stratford again.

This time they hoped the advent of an Olympic year could work in their favour, putting Spurs back into the top four and putting Aston Villa to the test when they played Manchester City on Wednesday.

It turned out they couldn’t. Brennan Johnson got the visitors off to a flying start with his fourth goal in eight games, but Spurs fizzled and disappointed again at West Ham’s home ground, leaving Ange Postecoglou wishing he could exert more control.

“We lacked clarity of thought in the final third,” Postecoglou said. ‘That’s just football, it’s people. I would like to have a joystick and place it where I want it. Our role is to help them through it.”

Kurt Zouma scored the equalizer, a scrappy header, to help his team resist a point. Watched from the stands by his family and childhood friend Paul Pogba, the Juventus midfielder who is currently serving a suspension after a positive drugs test.

“It came off my head and shoulder,” Zouma said. ‘The important thing is that he went in. We didn’t start well, but the reaction was good and that is good for confidence. It was a very intense game. We gave so much energy. We know that Tottenham attack with six men and we had to counter that.’

West Ham started in the same sloppy defensive manner with which they finished at Newcastle, where they turned a 3-1 lead into a 4-3 defeat with a late collapse on Saturday, while Tottenham’s Johnson started as he finished against Luton, three days earlier.

Johnson came off the bench on Saturday to secure another comeback win for Spurs, enough to earn him a return to the starting line-up, and he found the net inside five minutes at the London Stadium.

Rodrigo Bentancur rolled a short pass to Timo Werner, who beat Vladimir Coufal with a change of pace and cut the ball square. Johnson hastily arrived from the opposition flank, as Postecoglou demands, to convert from close range.

There were few chances for goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianksi, the only change David Moyes made to the side that started at Newcastle, where Alphonse Areola suffered an injury.

It was a great start for Postecoglou and the first time his team had scored in the first half of a match since Richarlison’s brace at Everton in early March.

It was a disheartening turn of events for Moyes after seeing Jarrod Bowen squander the first opening.

Bowen has been so deadly in front of goal this season. No one expected such a sloppy ending when he shot Mohammed Kudus’ cross wide.

Pedro Porro and Heung-min Son missed opportunities to extend the lead before West Ham equalized from a corner. Zouma appeared unnoticed in front of the goal and shot past Guglielmo Vicario, his third goal of the season.

West Ham’s set pieces caused problems. Vicario kept out a James Ward-Prowse free-kick before the break and a collection of inswinging corners, no doubt designed to put pressure on the Italian goalkeeper, were cleared, rarely with any composure.

Vicario made the first save of the second half to keep out Michail Antonio, although he came under fire again from a corner.

Bowen’s ball was accurate and Konstantinos Mavropanos won the header, which ended up in the keeper’s legs. Antonio was offside for Vicario. It wouldn’t have counted.

Tottenham dominated possession without breaking through burgundy’s deep shield, and West Ham became increasingly dangerous on half-time.

Antonio should have found the net, cleared by a long pass from Ward-Prowse’s defense and helped by a slip from Micky van de Van.

Antonio found that he alone could defeat Vicario. He aimed low with power, but didn’t make a nice connection and allowed the Spurs goalkeeper to keep the ball out, a beautiful save that he really shouldn’t have made.

This was the pattern of the final phase. Tottenham got the ball, with little success. Postecoglou made changes, Giovani Lo Celso his last roll of the dice. Moyes stayed with his starting eleven and was satisfied with a point.

“If you had offered me four points at Spurs this season I would have shaken your hand, said ‘thank you very much’ and walked away,” the West Ham boss said. “It’s good results for us against a very good team.”