T“Ottenham Hotspur,” said Thomas Frank after Sunday's match Lost 3-0 to Nottingham Forest.are “not a quick fix.” This has been true for perhaps 40 years, ever since they fell into financial crisis amid boardroom shenanigans in the 1980s, became the first football club to float on the stock exchange, and embarked on a disastrous diversification program (the highlight was perhaps when they became Hummel's UK distributor, a role they performed so poorly that Southampton took a page from their own program to blame Spurs is that their jerseys are not delivered).
Right now, the Spurs would probably settle for at least a small fix, a slow hint of progress, a glimmer of hope, anything to pull them out of their current dark spiral. They have won only one of their last seven league games. Having beaten Everton on 26 October, they were third, five points behind the leaders. Sunday defeat leaves them 11th14 points behind Arsenal. Considering Spurs finished 17th last season, perhaps that's not too surprising – and the compact nature of the table means they are just four points off fifth and likely Champions League qualification. But at the same time, 22 points is the lowest result in the Premier League after 16 games since 2008.
It's not just results; this is their manner. Only twice in their last 11 games have Spurs registered an xG of 1 or higher. They have had four games this season in which their xG was 0.3 or lower: against Arsenal, Chelsea, Brentford and then Nottingham Forest. A broad interpretation of Sunday's defeat would be that the first goal was a chaotic defensive mix-up, which can happen when you try to play from behind, especially when players have little self-confidence, that the second goal may have been a brilliant strike or perhaps a poor cross, and that the third goal was an extraordinary strike from 22 yards. Such goals will not come every week.
Except… both Forest duo Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ibrahim Sangare were given time to evaluate their shots, and those were far from the only three chances Forest created. Spurs may be one of those teams that suffers misfortune – remember the two goals they conceded in the opening six minutes against Fulham, which were also the result of a long-range strike and a cheap surrender of possession in a dangerous area – but they bear significant responsibility for it.
The decline from the opening weeks of the season, when Spurs pushed Paris Saint-Germain to the brink in the Super Cup before losing on penalties and then winning away to Manchester City, is astonishing. A lack of creativity is an obvious issue and it must be acknowledged that Spurs are without the injured Dominic Solanke, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski. But they also bought Xavi Simons, Mohammed Kudus and Mathis Tela for a combined £140 million ($187 million) in the summer and brought in Randall Kolo Muani on loan; It's not the bare bones.
Frank may have prioritized fixing up the defence, which was arguably the area most in need of improvement after the Ange Postecoglou era. But as results have deteriorated, confidence has waned and it is now affecting the core of the team. Or perhaps Frank, who hails from Brentford, is less familiar with teams who tend to sit in a low block against his team and struggle to find a way to break them down. At least until Sunday, the big concern was home form, with just two wins in eight league matches at the stadium. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this season. Nothing is more likely to anger fans who have already protested ticket prices.
Frank started slowly at both Brøndby and Brentford, but it's different here. Checking at altitude Premier League a club of a different scale. There were noticeable displays of dissatisfaction from the players – with manager Jed Spence and Mickey van de Ven after the defeat to Chelsea, and also from Spence after being substituted on Sunday; and with the fans – especially after the defeat to Fulham, when a frustrated Pedro Porro appeared to signal to his team-mates not to applaud in response to Guglielmo Vicario's booing.
How does this happen? It's very difficult to say, considering departure Chairman Daniel Levy took over in September as the Lewis family, who own the club, took on a more hands-on role. The summer contracts and Frank's appointment were Levy's doing. What the Lewis family and the new directors brought in this year think about these deals remains open to question. However, Frank is already starting to feel the pressure; It's good that the Champions League draw was relatively soft, which is why they are 11th in this table.
The situation is not completely hopeless yet, but there are many warning signs.
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This is an extract from Football with Jonathan Wilson, Guardian US's weekly look at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? E-mail [email protected]and he'll answer the best questions in a future episode.
