It was worth the wait – for Mikey and the rest of us as the No 30 sprung back into action against the North Londoners at lunchtime.

And it didn’t take him long to add his sixth goal of the season from 17 appearances – certainly not one of his best but as valuable as any he will score.

Coming so early it gave the Hammers confidence to impose themselves on the game for much of the first half. Spurs stepped it up later but it was the perfect way to say ‘I’m back’

If one is perfectly honest it looked very much as though the No 30 is playing within himself these days but with Lingard doing the hard running the teams striking options are looking in very good hands.

And afterwards he made it clear he was thrilled with the victory over the Hammers biggest rivals these days.

Commenting at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2021/february/21-february/michail-antonio-were-over-moon-result he said: “I’m over the moon. It was a massive game today.

“We saw the results yesterday and everything went our way, and we had to go out there and play the way we know we can.

“We didn’t play at our best, but we managed to grind out the win.”

He added: “You expect teams managed by Mourinho to come out raring to go, but they started slowly tod.

“They played on Thursday and were maybe a bit tired from that. We scored but then they got into the game and started playing well.

“We managed to get that second goal at the start of the second half and then hold out.”

“Since I’ve been at West Ham I’ve got a good tally against Spurs. It’s one of the teams I seem to score against – hopefully it’s not the only team I score against, but I can keep going, keep pushing on and scoring goals.

“We won’t get ahead of ourselves and what I will say is we go out, try to play well and get three points [in every game].”