West Ham secured a spot in the 4th round of the EFL Cup following a 3-nil victory over Bolton on Tuesday night, and earned themselves a clash with Tottenham next month following Wednesday’s draws.
Before that, both teams will battle for Premier League points on Saturday at the London Stadium, and the Hammers have to be in their best element if the north London visitors are to leave empty handed like they did the last time they came to town.
Summer signing Marko Arnautovic believes defeating Tottenham is possible, but insists “everyone” must be stopped, as concentrating all efforts into thwarting Harry Kane could backfire.
The Austrian international told the press after Tuesday’s game: “It’s about the whole team, it’s not only about Harry Kane. It’s never about one player. We need to stop everyone, but we need to focus on us and not on them.
“We need to play our game and we are playing at home, we have the crowd with us, so let’s play on the front foot and we’re going to see how it is.
“I don’t know about how the previous matches have gone against Spurs, as this is my first year here, but this is a London derby and we are playing at home, so of course we want to win this game, but it’s going to be a tough challenge.
“Tottenham is a very good team, but we’re going to see on Saturday. We will recover on Wednesday and then on Thursday and Friday we’re going to work hard to see that we can win this game on Saturday.”
West Ham have emerged victorious thrice in Spurs’ last 4 league visits, and could once again draw on the strength of their home support to grab all 3 points by weekend as they look to further steer clear away from the drop zone.
