Chelsea captain John Terry promised West Ham 'a night out on the boys' if they defeated Tottenham
According to James Collins, Terry gave him and Mark Noble an extra incentive to beat Mauricio Pochettino's title-chasing Tottenham
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.John Terry promised the West Ham United squad a ‘night out on the Chelsea boys’ on the condition that they defeated Tottenham Hotspur.
The Hammers effectively ended Tottenham’s title challenge by beating Mauricio Pochettino’s side 1-0 at the London Stadium earlier this month, with midfielder Manuel Lanzini scoring the crucial goal.
West Ham’s victory allowed Chelsea to secure the Premier League title at the Hawthorns a week later, and according to Hammers defender James Collins, he and his team-mates had an extra incentive to beat their historic rivals from north London.
Collins told Betway, West Ham’s sponsors: “John Terry text me and Mark Noble saying, ‘If you boys beat Tottenham there’s a dinner or a night out on the Chelsea boys,’ so that was nice.”
“But we wanted to beat Tottenham anyway. We’re lucky we did in the end looking at the result we got after that [a 4-0 loss against Liverpool].
“It was a massive result, it put us safe and obviously to beat our closest rivals at home was massive.”
West Ham supporters have had little to smile about this season, with Slaven Bilic’s side languishing in the bottom half of the table since the opening weekend.
Collins, however, believes the victory over Tottenham showed what the Hammers are capable of and paid credit to Bilic for masterminding the win.
“It’s all about the tactics on the night, you change formations, change tactics for each team you play," he said. “Credit to the gaffer he got it spot on and we stopped them.
“Obviously we watched a lot of videos on how they play and obviously the gaffer and his staff have looked into how they play and set up the team to stop them scoring and hopefully we could get one, which we did.”
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments