Spurs lost 3-0 to Forest on Sunday, leaving them just one point above the relegation zone at the final whistle


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Oftentimes, a relegation-threatened team needs only a small swing of momentum to dig themselves out of a hole and heading into Sunday's clash against Nottingham Forest, Tottenham Hotspur seemed to have just that. A 1-1 draw at Liverpool a week earlier earned them a valuable point, while a 3-2 win over Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Champions League may not have guaranteed their progression to the next round but competitive spirit – and some much-needed goals – were in full display. Certainly, that would be enough to get Spurs' gears going for the proverbial six-pointer at the bottom of the table against Forest?

It was, for about 45 minutes. Spurs were on the front foot, with the urgency their onlooking supporters were hoping for. It felt as if they were on the cusp of something on a handful of occasions, Mathys Tel leading the charge. The moment Igor Jesus' ball landed in the back of the net before the halftime whistle blew, though, all that hard work quickly became irrelevant.

There's an argument to be made that the story of Spurs' 3-0 defeat to Forest began with Igor Jesus' header, which told a familiar tale. Cristian Romero may have made a play for the ball but the rest of Spurs' defense seemed stopped in their tracks, adding to the growing list of defensive errors that have defined their season. Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, in his final game before a pre-planned hernia surgery, looked unimpressive on Morgan Gibbs-White's goal to make it 2-0 in the 62nd and by the time Taiwo Awoniyi scored the final goal of the game in the 87th minute, the energy had already been sucked out of the game.

The entirety of the 90 minutes, though, make for a perfect microcosm of Spurs' season. The tale of their relegation woes is one of death by 1,000 cuts. The defense is very easy to pick out and deserves plenty of scrutiny – Tottenham averaged 1.4 goals against per game during Thomas Frank's ill-fated six-month spell in charge, that figure spiraling to an abominable 2.86 goals against per game since Igor Tudor took the helm seven games ago. Few things have gone right under Tudor, Spurs going from six points above the drop zone when he started to one measly point ahead of 18th-place West Ham United currently.

Tudor prefers a three-back system, one that has rarely worked during his spell in charge. His approach has stymied any sense of fluidity in front of the center backs, despite the fact that the likes of Romero and Micky van de Ven are technically gifted enough to contribute to such a style. The mild form of momentum they entered Sunday's game came on the back of two games in which Tudor played four at the back – but it was a strategy he admitted he came to by accident because of an illness to Conor Gallagher before the Liverpool fixture. Spurs were not glamorous at Anfield, instead going with a rudimentary 4-4-2 that is familiar for teams battling relegation but that allowed them to keep taking attempts at the Reds' goal and then finally get an equalizer after 90 minutes of hard work.

Tudor introduced another tactical layer on Wednesday against Atletico Madrid, handing Xavi Simons a rare start despite his status as the only fit player in the squad who habitually plays progressive passes and one of the few with creative spark. It worked – Tottenham were still imperfect in the back but fluidity in attack was easy to spot and Simons rewarded Tudor for the trust with a brace in a pivotal moment.

Much like Frank before him, though, Tudor seems unwilling to learn the lessons in front of him, whether he stumbled upon them or if those takeaways were by design. Even if they were on the front foot for 45 minutes against Forest, they did not have much to show for it – even if they have an argument that they should have won a penalty in the first half. Spurs' five shots only totaled 0.35 expected goals, Tel and Archie Gray two lone standouts while Simons sat on the bench. Tudor refused to bring Simons on until the 67th minute, after they were down 2-0 and had a mountain to climb.

Spurs' offense is not well-positioned to be amongst the league's best thanks to sporting director Johan Lange's deeply flawed roster construction, but Tudor has refused to rev up the engine. His version of the team averages just 1.14 goals per game, somehow worse than Frank's lifeless team that mustered 1.4 goals a game.

It only makes the defensive resolve – or lack thereof – more glaring. The team continues to make silly mistakes, ones that should be beneath them as Premier League-caliber players. Some of it will come down to Lange's decisions but they seem to arrive to matches half asleep with Tudor in charge, forcing questions about his credentials as a short-term specialist. Seven games may be a small sample size but there is no question that things have gotten exceedingly worse under Tudor, whose team seems to lack the basics.

The fact that Spurs could not give themselves even the semblance of a cushion in the relegation race, though, is a signal that a wide variety of decision-makers have gotten an even wider variety of decisions wrong. The potential to get out of trouble still exists but as the consequences of Sunday's defeat to Forest sink in, it's hard to know if anyone in the building is capable of digging the team out of the hole.

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