Wilson’s last-gasp West Ham winner deepens Frank’s Tottenham crisis

It was the chant that had simmered for many weeks and there was an inevitability when it was belted out by the Tottenham support at the very last. “Sacked in the morning,” they yelled at Thomas Frank, the frustration unbearable. They have seen enough. In their opinion, the manager has to go.

Whether the club’s board agree is unclear. They know the problems that Frank has faced and continues to face during a season of turmoil and transition. The acid test of nerve is upon them.

It was the West Ham substitute Callum Wilson who took a match to the tinderbox of emotions in the second minute of stoppage time. The striker had just been kept out by a last-ditch Pedro Porro block. But when Oliver Scarles dropped over the corner and the Spurs goalkeeper, Guglielmo Vicario, was boxed in, lacking the strength to make his presence felt, the ball broke for Wilson and he shot home.

What a result this was for Nuno Espírito Santo and his relegation-threatened West Ham team. Their first Premier League win in 11 matches represented hope and was deserved, certainly on the back of an excellent first-half performance, the high point being Crysencio Summerville’s goal. It was the best period of football under Nuno.

It had been billed as El Dissatisfactico and all of the angst and misery belonged to Spurs. When Porro whipped in the cross from which Cristian Romero scored a desperately needed equaliser midway through the second-half, what happened next seemed to sum up the emotions. Porro turned to the Spurs fans in the West Stand and cupped his ear in their direction. And then he celebrated with a guttural roar.

It was a wildly conflicting day, the home crowd yo-yoing between wanting to show their support and venting their spleen. In the end, the takeaway was the latter. The boos rang out in venomous style.

Callum Wilson scores from close range to put West Ham in front late on. Photograph: Tony O Brien/Reuters

Nuno had won on his previous visit here – with Nottingham Forest last April – and he watched his team cut through their recent woes to assume a grip on proceedings. They settled after Spurs had made a fast start, Mateus Fernandes influential in midfield, Summerville in the mood off the left wing.

It was hard to know where the West Ham belief had come from after the shattering home loss to Forest on the Tuesday before last, which had come hard on the heels of the embarrassing defeat at Wolves. The visiting fans were not complaining and they descended in a mixture of joy and disbelief when Summerville put them ahead.

Nuno had his January signings, Pablo Felipe and Taty Castellanos, as a strike partnership – it was an old-school 4-4-2; a statement of intent – and the latter fired the first warning shot to Spurs when he hooked over the crossbar after Summerville headed back an Aaron Wan-Bissaka cross.

West Ham were in front shortly afterwards. Summerville was eager to run at the Spurs defence, to ask questions and he profited after cutting in from the left after a well-worked counter. It was ignited by Jarrod Bowen, who shrugged off a Ben Davies challenge in which the Spurs left-back seriously injured himself. Davies was given oxygen and taken off on a stretcher. When Summerville bought himself a yard of space and let fly, the shot flicked off Micky Van de Ven to wrongfoot Vicario.

Mathys Tel had shot high for Spurs at the outset when well-placed – a big miss – and the Spurs crowd came to be locked in an internal battle after the Summerville breakthrough. They wanted to stay with the team and yet they could not keep the howls inside them as their players laboured, pockmarking their play with mistakes.

They were hugely edgy when Vicario tried to begin moves with low passes from the back; they wanted greater urgency. The first boos from them were heard when Castellanos blew a free header at the far post following a corner in the 26th minute. There were more when Xavi Simons misplaced a pass for Djed Spence, who had come on for Davies. And of course there was a loud and angry blast of them upon the half-time whistle.

West Ham ought to have been further in front by then. They created a fistful of good openings. Castellanos could not control in a good position; Bowen had a shot blocked by Van de Ven; Bowen had the ball in the net only to be pulled back for offside and Vicario had to stretch to repel a Konstantinos Mavropanos header. Spurs’s only response in the first half was a Wilson Odobert header on 25 minutes that Alphonse Areola blocked brilliantly. The goalkeeper would deny Spence on the rebound.

Cristian Romero, the scorer of Tottenham’s equaliser, in despair at full time. Photograph: Marc Atkins/Getty Images

Frank introduced Yves Bissouma for the second-half – it was the midfielder’s first football of the season – and the Spurs support really did have to stay with the team. The red rags endured, the biggest one being Vicario in possession, playing out with little conviction. There were more boos for him and his efforts on the hour, the situation not helped when his teammates repeatedly went back to him.

The tackles flew in, including some bad ones. Bowen on Simons. Van de Ven on Bowen in retaliation. There was also a death-or-glory slide challenge from Van de Ven on Summerville as the winger ran through. He came up with glory.

Bissouma worked Areola and there was yet more anger in the South Stand when Frank introduced Dominic Solanke at the expense of Tel. The fans had wanted him to stay on. It was febrile. But it lurched the other way when Romero equalised, the thumping header a real captain’s contribution.

It looked as though Spurs might pinch the win. West Ham got away with one when Scarles touched the ball inside the area with his fingertips before the Spurs debutant Conor Gallagher crossed. No penalty, said the video assistant referee. Simons would also be denied by Areola. The finale added up to agony for Frank.