A week that started on a high, ends in embarrassment.
Victory in the Champions League which centred around Heung Min Son's return to Tottenham was soon to be forgotten after a woeful display in Nottingham.
A Legends Farewell
Tuesday's Champions League tie against winless Slavia Prague presented a wonderful opportunity for former Spurs captain and forever legend Heung Min Son to come back to Tottenham and say goodbye to fans and players. It also presented an opportunity for the club to sell some overpriced tickets to a game that had no real motive to attend. Although the result and sentiment of Sonny's return was brilliant, the attendance wasn't. A recurring problem this season...
The attendance tonight at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is 47,281.
— Alasdair Gold (@AlasdairGold) December 9, 2025
Thomas Frank made two changes to the side that beat Brentford on Saturday, including starting Wilson Odobert over Kolo Muani, who had appeared to be limping after the victory. For once I didn't really have any qualms about Frank's squad and was confident in a victory for an increased chance to qualify for the next round of the Champions League. Pre-match Son graced the turf of the Tottenham Hotspur stadium to send his wishes to the club and if it didn't bring a smile to your face then I'm not sure what would.
The game was as expected, as Spurs seemed lively from the off. Although it has been against weaker opposition, in these last two fixtures we have seen a real difference in intensity and directness in our passing. Getting the ball quickly to Xavi or into the flanks was working and having just the one goal at half time was probably harsh on Spurs. I was once again impressed by Xavi and Richarlison, who swapped positions quite often to allow Simons to run onto Richarlison's headers. Odobert seemed confident and as always Kudus wowed with his trickery and strength.
The second half proved no different and within 5 minutes of the restart Porro was brought down allowing Kudus to slot home a penalty and double our lead. It also gave home fans the opportunity to witness the Ghanian perch on his chair, with the help of his teammates (as seen at the top of the article). Kudus has just been brilliant this season and I'm hoping as we start to see the rest of the team show some quality, he will just keep getting better. The Slavia keeper kept them in the game for the rest of the second half, making a brilliant double save to keep the score at 2, but you can only do so much. As the game trickled towards the final 10 minutes, Xavi was brought down after a clumsy challenge and another penalty was awarded. One is rare enough for Spurs, but two! That's ridiculous. Xavi stepped up and made it 3 to sum up another excellent performance from our new number 7. I can't wait to see more of this man because he seems to be getting better and better with each game.
This result puts us 11th, just shy of those automatic qualification spots. The top 8 would be ideal to give our players some respite and our remaining fixtures are winnable, but that's not to say we won't find a way to make it difficult for ourselves.
Back to Reality
Any joy from Tuesdays win was cut short after Spurs fell to a humiliating defeat at the hands of Sean Dyche and Nottingham Forest.
It seems that Frank has found his favourite team with an identical line-up to the one which saw Spurs beat Brentford. I was fairly confident for this game, given our recent form improvement and confidence on the ball, but that was soon removed. We were second to everything from the off, looking disorganised and unable to string any passes together. The front 4, despite seemingly getting better week after week, were dreadful. They couldn't hold onto the ball or provide any real goalscoring opportunities. When Ibrahim Sangare snatched the ball off Archie Gray and put it on a plate for Hudson-Odoi, it was no surprise and a sign of things to come. I felt bad for Gray, who had really come on leaps and bounds playing in his natural position, but unfortunately (like everyone else) he wasn't up for it today. The first half drew to a close and I was expecting a change based on the lack of threat and cohesion that we had already seen.
Of course Frank wasn't going to do that and our continued lacklustre performance was once again punished by a bizarre cross/shot from Hudson-Odoi, once again raising questions about Vicario. Surely now an attacking change was in bound to gain some momentum and push on to get a goal. No instead he took off our best performer Spence for Ben Davies. Now I'll always have respect for Davies as a true servant to the club, but there is absolutely no way he should be the first man coming on in a game that we are in desperate of any attacking threat. Palhinha and Bergvall also joined him, replacing Archie Gray and Bentancur. To nobody's surprise, we continued how we had been playing for the opening 50 minutes. The game was eventually wrapped up by a brilliant Sangare finish, who really impressed me today. There was absolutely nothing to note regarding our attacking chances because there wasn't really any. Fans continue to question the managers decision making- patience is already running thin.
The triple change was sackable. Majority of performances this season have been abysmal. Thought we maybe turned a slight corner last week or so…..
— Seb Martin (@SebOnFootball) December 14, 2025
But we haven’t. Frank 👋
You have to wonder what Frank is seeing in training to keep playing our best striker on the wing, consistently starting an inconsistent Bentancur and not giving opportunities to Tel and Odobert, who have evidently made an impact off the bench this season. We had a slight turn of form, but we were playing a poor Brentford and Prague side. Nottingham Forest are never pushovers, but being completely dominated by them? That's shameful. This Christmas period is going to be very telling of whether Frank has the gusto to manage Tottenham. It was never going to be easy, but he is certainly not helping himself...
COYS!
