Chelsea stars offered prize to West Ham players for beating Tottenham

The Chelsea squad may soon be using some of their Premier League prize money to pay for a slap-up meal for West Ham’s players, with James Collins revealing he and his team-mates were given an extra incentive to beat Tottenham.

The Hammers recorded a 1-0 victory over fierce local rivals Spurs earlier this month to halt their title charge – and end a nine-game winning run – with Chelsea wrapping up the title just a week later thanks to wins over Middlesbrough and West Brom.

West Ham boss Slaven Bilic revealed afterwards that Nemanja Matic had offered to buy him dinner if he managed to engineer a victory, and the rest of his squad can expect the same treatment courtesy of Chelsea skipper John Terry.

‘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,’ Collins told Betway Insider.

‘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.’

Spurs failed to muster a single shot on target after West Ham took the lead through Manuel Lanzini, with the visitors resorting to playing long balls which were swatted away with ease.

Collins won six aerial duels that night, more than any other player, as Tottenham’s title hopes crumbled, and the Wales international believes Spurs’ direct approach played straight into West Ham’s hands.

He continued: ‘You’ve got to give credit to the gaffer really, they only went long ball because we stopped them playing threaded balls into the holes, into Harry Kane’s feet, into Dele Alli letting him get there and turn.

‘So we stopped that and forced them into playing the long balls where we’re strong all the way along the back. Me, Winston [Reid] and [Jose] Fonte are all very capable at the back and that sort of played into our hands.

He continued: ‘You’ve got to give credit to the gaffer really, they only went long ball because we stopped them playing threaded balls into the holes, into Harry Kane’s feet, into Dele Alli letting him get there and turn.

‘So we stopped that and forced them into playing the long balls where we’re strong all the way along the back. Me, Winston [Reid] and [Jose] Fonte are all very capable at the back and that sort of played into our hands.