Maddison's frustration boiling over after more missteps

Playmaker struggling to make usual impact following period sidelined with ankle injury

- Malik Ouzia

CONTINUING frustration in east London for Tottenham, who are now looking at five years without a win at West Ham, and a more acute variety for James Maddison, their fizzy playmaker gone flat.

It is now a full two months since Maddison returned from ankle ligament damage and still he is yet to rediscover the thrilling early season form that made him an instant Spurs hit, the strain of that struggle now becoming visible on the pitch.

This ought to have been a game tailor-made for Maddison, with West Ham's midfield vulnerability without the suspended Edson Alvarez well documented and David Moyes's side conceding goals for fun. When Brennan Johnson put the visitors ahead inside five minutes, it looked set to be more of the same.

Instead, though, Kurt Zouma equalised midway through the first half and, from there, Spurs toiled, enjoying a hefty 68 per cent of the possession but seldom crafting anything clear-cut.

Maddison, in theory the craftiest of them all, endured a night defined by the flailing of arms more than incisive passes or clever flicks, his irritation at himself, his team-mates, and West Ham's rough treatment plain to see.

Eventually, for the second game in a row, Ange Postecoglou withdrew perhaps his most creative footballer with his side chasing a winning goal.

Unlike in Saturday's triumph over Luton, it never came.