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Tottenham Hotspur, Thomas Frank said after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest, are “not a quick fix”. That’s been true for probably 40 years, since they lurched into financial crisis amid boardroom shenanigans in the 1980s, becoming the first soccer club to list on the stock exchange and embarking on a disastrous programme of diversification (the highlight perhaps being becoming Hummel’s distributor in the UK, a role they performed so badly that Southampton took a page of their own programme to blame Spurs for the fact that their shirts were not being delivered).
Right now, Spurs would probably settle for even a little bit of a fix, a slow hint of progress, a flicker of hope, anything to break them out of the current grim spiral. They have won just one of their last seven league games. When they beat Everton on 26 October, they were third, five points behind the leaders. Sunday’s defeat leaves them 11th, 14 points behind Arsenal. Given that Spurs finished 17th last season, perhaps that is not so unexpected – and the compacted nature of the table means they are only four points off fifth and probable Champions League qualification. But, equally, 22 points represents their lowest Premier League tally after 16 games since 2008.
It’s not just the results; it’s the manner of them. Only twice in their last 11 games have Spurs registered an xG of 1 or above. This season they’ve had four games when they’ve registered an xG of 0.3 or below: against Arsenal, Chelsea, Brentford and then at Nottingham Forest. A generous interpretation of Sunday’s defeat would be to say that the first goal was a shambolic defensive mix-up, the sort of thing that can happen when you try to play out from the back, particularly when players are low on confidence, that the second goal was possibly a brilliant strike or possibly a mis-hit cross, and that the third was an extraordinary drive from 22 yards. Goals like that will not fly in every week.
Except … both of Forest duo Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ibrahim Sangaré were given time to measure their shots, and those were far from the only three chances Forest created. Perhaps Spurs have become one of those sides to whom unfortunate things happen – think of the two goals they conceded in the first six minutes against Fulham, which were also the result of a long-range strike and the cheap concession of possession in a dangerous area – but they bear significant responsibility for that.
The decline since the opening weeks of the season, when Spurs pushed Paris Saint-Germain to the limit in the Super Cup before losing on penalties and then won away at Manchester City, is striking. The lack of creativity is the obvious problem and it must be acknowledged that Spurs are without the injured Dominic Solanke, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski. But at the same time they bought Xavi Simons, Mohammed Kudus and Mathys Tel at a combined price of £140m ($187m) in the summer, and brought in Randal Kolo Muani on loan; it’s not the barest of bones.
Perhaps Frank prioritised sorting out the defence, which probably was the area most in need of improvement after the Ange Postecoglou era. But as results have deteriorated, confidence has waned and that is now affecting the back of the team as well. Or perhaps, coming from Brentford, Frank is less familiar with facing teams who habitually sit in a low block against his side and is struggling to find a way to break them down. At least until Sunday, home form had been the big concern: just two wins in eight league games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this season. Nothing is more likely to enrage a fanbase that was already protesting about ticket prices.
Frank began slowly at both Brøndby and Brentford, but this is different. The scrutiny at a top Premier League club is of a different magnitude. There have been visible demonstrations of dissatisfaction from players – with the manager from Djed Spence and Micky van de Ven after the defeat to Chelsea, and from Spence on being substituted on Sunday; and with the fans – particularly after the Fulham defeat, when a frustrated Pedro Porro seemed to signal to his teammates not to applaud the stands in response to the booing of Guglielmo Vicario.
How does this play out? It’s very difficult to tell, given the departure in September of the chair Daniel Levy as the Lewis family who own the club took a more hands-on role. The summer signings and Frank’s appointment were all Levy’s doing. What the Lewis family and the new directors brought in this year think of those deals is open to question. Already, though, Frank is beginning to come under pressure; it’s just as well the Champions League draw has been relatively gentle, so they lie 11th in that table.
The situation not quite irretrievable yet, but there are a lot of worrying signs.
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This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email [email protected], and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.
