HARRY KANE struck with two minutes left to hand Spurs a lucky win.
And for West Brom and their under-fire manager Slaven Bilic, it was a massive body blow as they deserved a point.
But Tottenham found a way to win with Kane seizing on a mix-up between keeper Sam Johnstone and defender Kyle Bartley to head the winner.
Gareth Bale made his first Premier League game since scoring the only goal in Tottenham’s 1-0 win against Sunderland in May 2013.
But as Spurs’ players celebrated Kane’s header, Bale was back on the bench having been replaced following an average performance for the team.
Six days after losing 2-0 at Fulham, West Brom delivered a much better performance and this loss will certainly hurt.
Talk about things not going your way. West Brom even suffered a blow before kick-off as Branislav Ivanovic and attacker Matheus Pereira missed out after testing positive for Covid-19.
Yet for much of the first half, West Brom were the better side and Spurs, despite having Bale, Kane and Son Heung-min up front, were poor.
You would have put a fair amount of on Son opening the scoring in the 13th minute but he took what seemed an age to take his shot before managing a weak effort and it was blocked by Bartley.
Home striker Karlan Grant was guilty of wasting an even better chance than Son’s but he delivered a terrible header from Darnell Furlong’s excellent cross.
Eric Dier delivered a timely header on the line to keep out an effort from Callum Robinson with Grant waiting to pounce.
West Brom also started the second half well and Dara O’Shea went close with a glancing header.
Bale, who had been expertly shackled by the home defence, finally found himself in a reasonably dangerous position but he failed to connect properly to Kane’s terrific pass.
Bale then turned provider with a free-kick which Kane headed wide while West Brom keeper Johnstone finally had a couple of saves to make with efforts from Sergio Reguilon and Son.
Spurs lost Tanguy Ndombele following a challenge from Bartley and moments after arriving as a sub, Giovani Lo Celso got his feet in a tangle and screwed the ball wide when he should have scored.
West Brom also had their moments and Grant forced an instinctive save from Lloris
Bale was replaced by Lucas Moura with 13 minutes left while Carlos Vinicius was handed a Premier League debut when coming on for Moussa Sissoko.
And with seven minutes left, Johnstone produced a stunning one-handed save to push away a drive from Vinicius.
Yet with just a few minutes left, Johnstone failed to come out for Matt Doherty’s cross, Bartley failed to get near Kane and the England captain scored with his head.
