Ahead of Sunday's relegation melee between the visiting Nottingham Forest and hosting Tottenham Hotspur, a key match in the fight for Premier League survival, Tottenham fans went all-out for their side, rolling up to the streets of North London and making the whole thing feel like a trophy parade. There were flares, chants, and nervous excitement, as Spurs headed into a home match against the team directly below it in the relegation battle. It was quite a sight to behold:
And then, Tottenham had to play the game. How did that go?
Oof.
Looking only at the statistics of the 3-0 defeat at the hands of 16th-place Forest, you might think Tottenham controlled the game: 59 percent possession, almost twice as many shots (14-8), 13 corner kicks to just three from the visitors. Those are the kinds of numbers that would typically indicate a Tottenham victory, but nothing has come easy for Tottenham this season. None of Forest's three goals were particularly difficult, and that's perhaps the most concerning bit for the home side. There was no incredible solo play, or brilliant tactical shift from Forest manager Vítor Pereira. The three goals came from a corner-kick header in the 45th minute, and then two cutbacks down Forest's left wing, one on the ground from Callum Hudson-Odoi in the 62nd and one in the air from Neco Williams in the 87th. Morgan Gibbs-White and Taiwo Awoniyi, respectively, converted those cutbacks dutifully, while Igor Jesus scored just his third goal of the season on the corner-kick opener.
On their end, Spurs failed to create much legitimate danger. Of their 14 shots, only three went on target: one in first-half added time, the other two after the side went down 3-0, both from Dominic Solanke. Tottenham failed to find any rhythm and connecting tissue between its midfield and attack, while Pape Matar Sarr was victimized on two of the three goals. Sarr lost Gibbs-White on the second, and then didn't close down Williams on the third, though I will cut him a bit of slack there, as he was left on an island against two Forest players off a long free kick; there was little he could have done there, and maybe some of the blame should go to Kevin Danso for not marking Awoniyi tighter in the box. There's little positive to take from this debacle, whether in the micro sense of this one game in particular or the larger, more concerning sense of the task that lays before Tottenham over the remaining two months of the season.
The defeat to Forest is just the latest indignity in what has turned from a nightmare season into something even more horrific. Since I last checked on on Tottenham, things have only gotten worse, and it is only by the grace of West Ham's own faltering form that even now, after the latest embarrassment in this Spursy Century of Humiliation-ass season, Tottenham is still clinging to safety by a fingernail, one point (and a sizable goal difference advantage) above the Hammers.
Since the 2-1 defeat at Fulham on Mar. 1, which spurred my last foray into the affairs of the Lilywhites, Tottenham has accomplished very little to be proud of. If anything, I jumped the gun by a game, as four days after the Fulham loss came a 3-1 home defeat to Crystal Palace, in a match where Micky van de Ven received a first half red card for a clumsy last-man pull-down in the box. That was swiftly followed by a brutal 5-2 loss in Spain to Atlético Madrid in the Champions League, in a match where Tottenham looked liked they belonged nowhere near the competition, let alone the knockout rounds.
Because Liverpool is its own relative mess this season, Tottenham finally broke its then-six-match losing streak with a 1-1 draw, the leveler coming off the right foot of Richarlison in the 90th minute. (It is, by the way, very funny that Tottenham lost six matches in between taking points off Manchester City and Liverpool.) Next, the team won a game for the first time in any competition since Jan. 28, when it defeated Atlético 3-2 in the second leg of the Champions League round of 16. Sure, the win was a mere consolation prize in a tie they handily lost on aggregate, but fans wouldn't have been deluded in thinking those two positive results might kickstart Tottenham heading into the relegation battle.
Alas, the brief, qualified good times did not keep rolling. This weekend's loss to Forest is probably the worst game Tottenham has played since, well, the last time it played Forest back in December; in that game, Forest won by an identical 3-0 scoreline. It's perhaps the most damning indictment of Tottenham's season that Forest, a club that reached new heights last year only to crater miserably this campaign, won both league matches by a combined 6-0 scoreline.
Where does Tottenham go from here? I don't want to pick on manager Igor Tudor too much, as he found out immediately after Sunday's match that his father had passed away, but man, he can't be long for this job. On Monday, rumors intensified regarding a potential sacking and replacement by former Monaco manager Adi "Please Don't Call Me By My Full First Name" Hütter, which would not be a big upgrade for Tottenham but which would relieve Tudor of a job that simply has not worked out for anyone.
Whatever the solution is for Tottenham, the club needs to find it quick, because the run-in to the end of the season isn't particularly easy. There's only one more match on the schedule against a team in the relegation zone—against Wolves on Apr. 25—which means both that the supposedly easier matches are already done with and there's few chances for Tottenham to build a direct cushion over its opposition in the fight for survival. Speaking of that opposition, aside from Forest, which now holds a two-point lead over Tottenham, Spurs also has to deal with West Ham, and that might be the club's saving grace. West Ham is having a bit of a reverse Tottenham season, in that the Hammers were terrible early on but have somewhat turned it around in the new year. However, with a chance to jump out of the relegation zone on Sunday, West Ham lost 2-0 to Aston Villa, so they still trail Tottenham by that aforementioned point. Both schedules look roughly equivalent in difficulty from here on and out, so it will come down to who can bounce back with seven matches left to play.
As recently as kickoff time on Sunday, I would have said that Tottenham had turned things around just enough to avoid the ignominy of relegation; that Liverpool point was huge, even if the performance itself wasn't amazing, and at least Spurs showed some fight against Atlético. But the side looked so defeated and so useless against Forest that I have flipped in my mind. West Ham is not exactly a fearsome foe, but the Hammers have been playing much better than Spurs of late, and Tottenham has shown that a spiral is only one loss away at any moment. Perhaps a swap at manager could salvage things just enough, but if I were a gambling man (and thank whatever part of my brain has made me not be a gambling man), I'd wager on Tottenham plying its trade in the Championship next year. What a disaster.
