Almost a year on from that sweet night in Bilbao, many questions remain. One such is was Ange right all along? By this I mean, was the decision to prioritise the Europa League over the Prem the right decision? It’s a question which divides the fanbase of Tottenham Hotspur, and one which led to Ange Postecoglou losing his job, and here we are in the present day. Spurs are deeply ingrained within a relegation dog fight after replacing Ange with Thomas Frank, and at the time of writing have won nine games in the Premier League all season.

Last season, Spurs finished seventeenth in the league, while ending a trophy drought of seventeen years (the number 17 is a recurring theme throughout last season) and securing Champions League qualification in the process. Before I delve into this question, it’s worth noting that Spurs scored 54 goals in the league last year, which was as much as Chelsea who finished fourth. By making this point, I’m suggesting that the underlying factors of last season play a big part in justifying why Ange deserved a third season, as if breaking a 17 year trophy drought wasn’t enough.

Apart from the European triumph, the season did see some high notes such as the 4-0 victory at the Etihad, or the resounding 4-1 victories at home vs Aston Villa and West Ham. Ultimately, this culmination of factors were not enough to save Postecoglou’s job, even though Spurs are now throughly embroidered in a relegation battle, something they weren’t in last season. Spurs finished thirteen points off the drop, which is remarkable considering their last win in the league was on Matchday 31 against Southampton.

The toughest thing for me is trying contextualise to someone who isn’t a fan of Tottenham Hotspur that a 17th place finish means nothing when you are the first manager to deliver silverware in almost two decades. The end goal for any team within the beautiful game is to win silverware, to do so and lose your job whilst being the first to achieve such a feat in 17 years is truly remarkable, and in the worst way possible. This season, Spurs have paid for their actions. Sacking a manager who so clearly had every player on his side by telling him daily that they are winners, to replace him with a manager so inept that he tells the players from day one that they will lose games and that’ll be okay is absolutely astonishing.

Moreover, the fact they kept him on until February is even more astonishing, given absolutely zero progress had been made since the Super Cup final… This leads me to my overall point, was Ange right all along? It’s easy to suggest not when given the context of the ignominy of finishing seventeenth, but let me raise a quote.

“At some point I’ll get replaced by John the Pragmatist and you can all be happy and revel in it.”

The saddest thing is that he was right in everything he’s proclaimed, from “I always win in my second season,” to now this, and yet you still have “fans” of the club discrediting his achievement which is truly beyond me.

Given Spurs are embroidered within a relegation battle as aforementioned, I’d rather not dwell on the past, but focus on the future. The appointment of Roberto De Zerbi was one that did not sit right with me, for numerous reasons which you can research on. But there is no denying that he has this broken squad playing with passion, and the sole reason for this is going back to the very same foundations once laid by Ange Postecoglou. This is evident given the progress in each game, a bruising loss to Sunderland, a valiant effort vs Brighton (falling short to an error), a narrow but incredibly fought win vs Wolves, and finally a dominating victory vs Aston Villa who are now in a European final.

It’s impossible to tell where Spurs will end up, and my firm believe is that they will go down, which was in the back of my mind since pre season but that truly is a conversion for another day. The only way this seemingly doomed team stays up is if they continue to summon upon the foundations laid in the summer of 2023, and that is something all fans should come to accept.

To Ange.

It’s quite fitting for me to begin by speaking of Conor Gallagher, someone I’ve been heavily critical of since he joined. I still have no clue what occurred and why, but for some reason he played like a man possessed by Moussa Dembele (remember him from when we were good at football???) A truly sensational performance emphasised by a brilliant strike which gave Spurs the lead early on.

Relegation Richarlison doubled the lead for Tottenham twenty minutes before the half drew to a close with a lovely header from a Mathys Tel cross. If you watched the TNT broadcast, Spurs’ fans were incredible away from home, and when the boos rang at half time it was very much satisfying that they weren’t directed at Spurs for once.

Since coming in, Roberto De Zerbi (RDZ for this article) has managed to galvanise the squad and get them to play some actual football, something I knew would happen once he admitted his respect for Ange Postecoglou in a pre match presser. It’s lovely to see a team that is finally enjoying their football, a far cry from the lows of the Frank era which brought some very low points.

With three games to go, Spurs have finally won back to back games since 1888-89, and are finally out of the bottom three. I proclaimed in February to much ridicule that we’d be in a relegation battle, and here we are. I always say to the women in my life that I hate being right all the time, and while often sardonic, in this situation I truly cannot stand being correct.

As they say, it’s the hope that kills you, and seeing an emphatic win like this has killed me without a doubt. Emi Buendia scored in added time to give Villa a fighting chance, but it was all

too late by that point, and I was already 17 pints deep to care. A 2-1 victory at Villa Park, our first there since AP won 4-0 in 2024.

Do Spurs have what it takes to stay up? Form will certainly tell you otherwise, but the past three games have been so incredibly encouraging that it makes it almost impossible to suggest that they go down… but at the end of the day, this is Spurs we’re speaking of.

I should end on a positive as I rarely do these days, and I will do so by praising the squad today. A season full of mediocrity, and that’s being very generous, but on Sunday I saw eleven men fighting, the first time I’ve seen this all season. I was proud to watch it, but I shall not get ahead of myself. Three cup finals left for Spurs and RDZ, the only way they see this through is by battling like they did against Villa in every game.

Next Monday, Spurs host Leeds United in North London. I cannot stress the importance of this match enough, and I’m certain RDZ is telling his players the exact same thing. A win for Spurs would mean everything… three on the bounce? There’s a billion things I’d do to see that happen. In the words of Ange Postecoglou, “Spurs does crazy things to people.”

Let me preface the rant I’m about to embark on by saying I was quite proud of Tottenham in the opening 45 minutes. The determination from the Spurs players out of possession was remarkably more than anything witnessed under the regime of Thomas Frank. Spurs didn’t get much of the ball, but when they did get on it, at least they didn’t look as clueless as they did under Mr Frank. Eze got the visitors off to a blitzing start, albeit with quite an underwhelming goal. And it would’ve been easy for Spurs to drop their heads, but Randal Kolo Muani capitalised on a mistake from a relaxed Declan Rice to equalise for the hosts. That was his first goal in 18 Premier League matches.

Going out for the second half, an Arsenal onslaught continued, with Viktor Gyokeres producing a lovely finish to restore their lead. But Spurs continued, and as Conor Gallagher chased down a ball which he gave his whole heart to retrieve, he picked out Kolo Muani with a wonderful cross who blasted it into the net. 2-2!

Or so we thought.

According to the referee, Peter Bankes, Kolo Muani was deemed to have fouled Gabriel when the ball came in, as he had two hands on his back which constitutes a push. But it doesn’t. Anyone watching the game will have seen the massive Brazilian fly into the air after virtually no contact, not the first time he’s done it, and due to the glamorisation of the beautiful game, as we used to call it, somehow the referee disallowed the goal. This reminds me of a goal Hugo Ekitike scored at the very same ground earlier in the season, in which he pushes Cristian Romero to the ground with much more force used by Kolo Muani yesterday, the only difference being that his goal stood. But there’s no point in sitting here criticising the incompetence of yet another Premier League referee, I’d be here until I’m 50.

After this, the players clearly lost hope, and fell to two more goals before the full time whistle blew. A twelfth defeat of the season. When addressing the manner of the defeat, it’s imperative you remember Spurs have 12 players out due to injury or suspension. I constantly hear that this isn’t an excuse, I’m sorry but how could it possible not be a reason to explain this wretched season? A combined eleven of unavailable Tottenham players is currently better than their starting eleven. Laughable. Once again, the board is to blame. The neglect that fans have been warning about for years has finally come to fruition.

After Harry Kane left Spurs in the summer of 2023, I noted that we are now essentially a relegation fodder team. And apart from a remarkable 5th place finish in that 2023/24 season, our last two seasons tell you everything you need to know. You can’t remove 30 goals from a team and expect the goals to regenerate without any proper attempt to improve the team. What we’re seeing now is a consequence of taking no risks. The likes of Newcastle, Villa and even Brentford seem to have left Tottenham Hotspur in the dust. How can anyone look at a performance like this, one which they mustered 6 shots in 90 minutes, and surmise that this is a Top 6 club?

For Tudor, the challenge is to remain optimistic. Tottenham have eleven games left this season, and the effort shown in the first half is a positive to be taken for those games. If they can show that same application, then they will at least have a fighting chance. However, if Tudor fails to inspire the players, the club can say hello to away days at Wrexham and Birmingham City, and kiss away the benefits of having such a ground in the top flight of English football (unless they let Beyoncé perform again).

Up next is Fulham on Sunday, a game which won’t be easy. Spurs need every point they can muster in these next 2 months, and that game against will be a good test of Tudor’s resolve; will he continue to start the same mediocre players, or will he show some guts and play our promising academy players?

I hope for the latter, but at the end of the day, it’s Tottenham.

Even in the face of yet another poor home defeat, now 2 wins in 15 games, Thomas Frank remained fervent in his defence of his position, stating after the 2-1 defeat to Newcastle which left Spurs 5 points off the relegation zone,

“I spoke to them [owners] yesterday so no."

This response came when asked if he was worried about his position as manager, yet 12 hours after this, Tottenham Hotspur announced his sacking.

For Spurs, the timing of this couldn’t have been any worse. For months, fans have witnessed a steep decline in the performances home and away. From the 1-1 draw to bottom of the table Wolverhampton Wanderers, the 2-1 defeats by Sunderland and West Ham, the 3-0 loss to Forest, the 4-1 drubbing to Arsenal in which Spurs generated 0.07 xG, every performance seemed to set a new floor for Frank.

Last night was no different.

In typical Spurs fashion, they were futile in the first half, being lucky to see a Newcastle strike from Joe Willock disallowed for a very marginal offside. However in the 5th minute of first half stoppage time, Malick Thiaw poked one home from close range to set off the orchestra of boos once again at half time.

The second half started slowly, with Spurs still being pinned back, but they fought well, especially given that Odobert’s injury led to Frank pushing Conor Gallagher out to the right flank. Spurs saw a period of possession, which led to Archie Gray equalising from a well worked corner. This awoke the home crowd, who began to roar to soar their team on to find a winner. But as we now know all too well, it wasn’t to be. Anthony Gordon swivelled unchallenged on the edge of the Spurs penalty area, to thread a neat pass through to Jacob Ramsey who poked the ball past Vicario from just inside the box.

This was a dagger to the hearts of the Spurs fans, who saw their team draw level for only 4 minutes. The rest of the game was a tough watch for the home crowd, who began their boos once again at full time, bearing witness to an 8th winless game in a row. As stated before, Frank was calm in front of the media, defending his position and saying,

“I understand the question and I understand it’s easy to point on me but I also think it’s never only the head coach or the ownership or the directors or the players or the staff. It’s everyone.

“If you do something right, you build something that can last. Of course we are not in a top position now. Everyone knows, directors, ownership, myself, what position we are in, what we need to improve and what we need to do better. That is what we are working very hard on.”

Ultimately, it was not something he’d get to work on, as this morning the club announced the dismissal of the Dane, saying,

“Results and performances have led the board to conclude that a change at this point in the season is necessary.”

This is despite the club saying how determined they were for him to succeed.

Frank’s 8 months in charge of Spurs have had many low points, and very few high points (as well as barely any points at all in the league). At this point last season, Spurs had one more point and had scored 14 more goals, leaving them in 12th position. Frank was expected to shore up the defence, yet they’ve only conceded one less goal, and that’s without mentioning that the squad currently has no clue how to attack the opposition’s goal.

Ultimately, he has failed to deliver on anything he was expected to come in and do, leaving this sacking justified and arguably too late. An 11 day break is what the Spurs players now have, leaving the board with time to bring in an interim manager to galvanise the squad before their clash with Arsenal, an important game for both teams as one seeks their first title in 22 years, and the other is determined to avoid their first ever relegation from the top flight.

There is a point to be argued however. The Dane must feel he’s been left to hang out to dry, as a result of neglect in the transfer window by Vinai Venkatesham and Johan Lange, who despite stressing a need for signings last month only made two, for a squad which currently has 12 players out injured. In these conditions, how can any manger succeed? To those of you who’d argue this, I implore you to revisit every game we’ve played this season, even with those players fit. If still, you believe that the dire football and lack of attacking cohesion has been caused by injuries, maybe this isn’t the sport for you?

The Dane has had months to give the team even an ounce of identity, and yet every time I and others across the world sit down to watch them, it’s not only the players who have no clue what they’re doing, it’s us as well. The warning signs have been brewing for months, the fact that at the start of the season we could only score from a corner. Or perhaps the fact that we still concede the same goal from right outside the 18-yard box, a goal which has haunted us since 2023-24. Ultimately, Frank cannot argue his sacking, but at the same time, the board have to look at themselves, and realise where they are taking the club.

For Tottenham, the question now is who do they bring in? At this point in this season it is going to be increasingly difficult to find a viable option to see out the rest of this season, especially when they’d be walking into a shipwreck of a club. Hopefully the board can make a better decision this time, as the long-term future of Tottenham Hotspur depends on the next steps from here. Such action needs to be taken quickly, because as it stands, Spurs are sleepwalking to the Championship.

The funniest thing to come from all of this is the fact that Spurs have still qualified for the Champions League round of 16, and any incumbent manager will have to balance a cup run and a relegation battle… never change Spurs.

On Friday 7th February, Thomas Frank was preparing to extend his unbeaten run to five games in all competitions, as he prepared to face Manchester United at Old Trafford. In my Substack debut, I wrote that the performance Spurs put up in this game would determine how the fans truly felt about him (not a direct quote). Over 24 hours since the game, a 2-0 loss, I can say that my opinion of him hasn’t shifted, but that is not his fault.

In the opening half an hour, the game was very much equal. Spurs did have their chances, and even could have even had a penalty, had VAR checked the challenge on Solanke 15 minutes into the game. Then came a sight familiar to every Spurs fan, a red card for Cristian Romero. 29 minutes into the game, Romero lunges for a loose ball, in a manner that every Spurs fan has seen before (Chelsea 4-1 in Ange’s first season). His studs made contact with Casemiro’s ankle, which left referee Michael Oliver with no choice but to send him off. After a week in which Romero has criticised the clubs hierarchy yet again, it was a fateful blow for Spurs, who were spirited after going down to ten men but were ultimately outnumbered.

For Thomas Frank, this is truly the first game of the season where he has been faultless. Before the sending off, Spurs looked sharper than they have done in recent weeks, posing a great threat down either flank, with Udogie looking notably sharp in the early stages. However after going down to ten men, they almost immediately conceded from a corner scored by Bryan Mbeumo which dented their hopes of getting any result in Manchester to say the least. That being said, Spurs looked to be in the game right until Bruno Fernandes netted the match-winner, meeting a good cross from Diogo Dalot.

As for Cristian Romero, this will have been a humbling experience, or you’d hope it would be at least. After calling out Spurs’ ownership on Instagram after the Manchester City draw, saying,

“Great effort from all my teammates yesterday, they were incredible. I wanted to be able to help them even though I wasn’t feeling well, especially since we only had 11 players available- unbelievable but true and disgraceful”,

you’d expect at the very least for your club captain to discipline himself on the pitch, especially during a severe injury crisis in which Spurs cannot afford to lose any other players, right?

Apparently not.

This suspension means Romero will miss 4 games, including the North London Derby. It truly does beg the question, how much can a club captain truly get away with before his armband is stripped? It’s one thing criticising the ownership- which I fully agree with- but when your actions on the field go directly against what you’re saying off the pitch, what’s the point? It’s a true shame that Spurs were let down by their captain, once again, but their heads should be held high. Souza looked positive on his introduction to English football, and so did various Spurs players on the pitch.

On Tuesday night, Spurs host Newcastle United, and after recent results they sit in 15th place, 6 points off the relegation places. It goes without saying, a win would mean everything to Tottenham Hotspur. Only 8 months after their triumph in Bilbao, they find themselves in an even worse spot in the Premier League than they were in last season. It’s quite remarkable to write this, but are Spurs in genuine danger of being relegated? Only time will tell.

To preface this, I’ve been contemplating the release of this article from the time the show Adolescence was released on Netflix, however I’ve held back, given that such an article isn’t something I’d look to specialise writing about in the future, and I am still new to the art that is journalism…

The performances of Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper in this series were nothing short of superb, but the public allowed themselves to get caught up in the thrill of the series and forget a true reality, such a case is slowly becoming the norm in English society. From the crimes committed by Axel Rudakubana and Hassan Sentamu, a worrying trend seems to be growing not only in the United Kingdom but across the globe, that violence against young women is acceptable. Sadly, the two perpetrators I have mentioned happen to be young Black men, which happens to feed eloquently into the narratives that the racists of our country try to portray.

For me to sit here and say not all Black men are like this is truly futile, this has been a debate had since senseless crimes such as the murder of Emmett Till across the pond in America, or to look closer to home, the killings of Black men such as Christopher Alder by the very own police officers sworn to protect us from such brutality. Yet I find myself in a state of confusion, why is it so easy for perpetrators of such crimes to become the face of a whole race? Yet when white men, or women, commit similar acts it’s swept under the rug? To answer this, we need to look further. To further this point, look to the murder of Sarah Everard, who was brutally assaulted and killed by a White police officer who was off duty. Yet almost five years after her murder, outrage has simmered (which is obviously inevitable), but this is a case which any person that holds views that encourage hatred towards people of an ethnic minority will fail to mention.

The ‘incel’ movement is one that gained worldwide prominence after the horrific acts of Elliot Rogers, one that if you were to scour through the deepest corners of the internet, you’d find people fervently defending him and what he stood for. The fact of the matter is that such attitudes to women are incredibly damaging. A catalyst for this issue is the rise of figures such as Andrew Tate, who for years has pushed a narrative that sees women as subservient to men, allowing the young, impressionable teens that view his content to carry these views into their day to day lives. We could sit here and go back and forth over how much media truly does to influence such crimes, need I mention the ongoing debate over drill music and the impact it has on young people throughout the United Kingdom? But amongst all these layers is a fact, the attitudes of young men are shifting, and not in a good way.

Adolescence is a telling tale of how social media has impacted the young men of today, that misogynistic attitudes are okay in our society, and that men as a collective should come together in holding such beliefs. Such attitudes are something that I can attribute to the ever growing loneliness epidemic which haunts young males of today (as much as you may want to deny this it’s true, studies have shown that men of the 21st century are much more unlikely to find ease in speaking to a women, than they would have done in the last century), but this isn’t the be all end all.

Figures such as Andrew Tate, even Charlie Kirk prior to his assassination, have continuously pushed agendas for young men to feed off, that women are less than men and are to be seen as nothing more than a housewife. Such attitudes lead to the state that the United Kingdom currently finds themselves in, with Reform set to win the next election based on current opinion polls. The problem is that we as a collective don’t understand how such attitudes can lead to even more hatred. In my eyes, the practice of misogyny can easily lead to racist beliefs. How, you may ask? It’s simple, if you are led to believe a White woman is lesser than you as a White man, how will you not struggle to hold the same beliefs when you see a Black man?

Revisiting the crimes aforementioned in the article committed by Black men, it is easy to see how such cultures have made these crimes seem acceptable to these men. As someone who has grown up in Croydon, the case of Hassan Sentamu is one that resonates with a lot of young men I’ve grown up with, a 17 year old boy carrying a knife. Why? The answer is incredibly complex, and to oversimplify it is virtually impossible but something which I will try to do. Living in a London borough over the past century means you will have been exposed to knife crime. And let’s not beat around the bush here, it is young Black men that are more likely to be carrying such weapons. What many people brush over are the reasons for this.

The emergence of gang culture throughout the late 80s and all the way through the 90s was something that was a consequence of past Prime Ministers such as Margaret Thatcher, Johnson Major, and Tony Blair’s attempts to effectively squeeze all Black people into social housing. If you aren’t familiar with the struggles the Black community face in the UK today, then such a sentence will seem blasphemous if you were to read it aloud. On the other hand, this is a tale all too familiar with the people I’ve grown up with. Sentamu’s case is different, in the sense that he hasn’t stabbed a fellow gang member, but an innocent girl. Not to say that if he were to have killed a gang member it would be less egregious, but the shocking manner in how the events took place is something that must be noted.

For Elianne Andam, a young girl who was in her final year of private secondary education, it is a tragedy for her family and friends. To think that such a person could be involved in such a senseless crime must be unimaginable for her parents. The saddest thing is how she was only there to accompany her friend, who was Sentamu’s ex-girlfriend.

When speaking of Rudakubana, it is important to note he had an extensive history of violent tendencies, one that I will not speak of in this article but you can read on with a simple search online. His crimes were against very young children, people he had never even knew. Until this day, his motive is still unknown, but police managed to recover internet history showing he had an obsession with figures such as Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan. Now there is a thin line for me to walk on here, in my unprofessional opinion, the sentiments shared by people such as Tate are no different to those shared by Hitler, and this brings me to my point. Social media has had a detrimental effect on the minds of young men, whether it be innocuous content such as promoting infidelity, or full on hatred towards women as seen by Tate, their views spread like wildfire and the young men of our generation let this content rot their brains by the day.

Where to go from here? Well there are a few issues, one of which is that any young man drowning in such a culture will reject any suggestion that they are going down a dark path. Ownership of such ideals is required for these young men to realise the damage that such ideas do to our society. Until that happens, this cycle will continue sadly. We need to hold people that hold these beliefs accountable, to tell them where they are going wrong, and why such things are horrible to believe in. Given the signs that Rudakubana showed before his crimes, it really is a shame that the authorities didn’t do more to prevent such an attack from taking place. But they are not all to blame.

His parents were first generation immigrants, and I have seen first hand how certain parents will look to defend their children at any given opportunity, even after their crimes (look to Chris Kaba), and that is where the problem begins. Parents need to remove the rose tinted glasses, and become more involved in the teenage lives of their children, no matter how much conflict this may cause. I believe this would do wonders to change the mindsets of young men across the country as well as the world, and would lead to a society in which women truly do feel safer to walk our streets.

The series Adolescence is truly a phenomenal watch, but do not become encapsulated in the idea that it is loosely based on true events, these are events that are unfolding before our very eyes, and if we don’t act soon we will all be complicit in raising a generation of monsters.

To the victims mentioned in this article, I chose not to mention the victims of Rudakubana’s crimes, may they rest in eternal peace, and I hope their families do find peace within their hearts one day.

For all the troubles Tottenham Hotspur have been through this season, the result at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday seems to override them all. After a dismal first half, in which the boos echoed around the stadium once again this season, a spirited performance in the second half saw them emerge with a 2-2 draw, a result which leaves their eternal rivals Arsenal in a favourable position, one that they weren’t in when this fixture was played almost two years ago.

Much was made of the Tottenham fans’ attitude to this fixture, as it was in May 2024. The backdrop for that game was much more dramatic, any other result than a win for Manchester City would effectively have handed the title to Arsenal, and as you can expect the fans were divided before that game. The manager of Tottenham at the time, Ange Postecoglou, was highly critical of Spurs fans at the time, criticising the foundations of the club and true intentions of the supporters. This time round, City were 7 points behind Arsenal ahead of this game. While a win for them would have been monumental in their title bid, it would not have given them the title in this scenario.

Frank opted for a 3-4-2-1 as seen in the draw away to Burnley, once again this formation seemed to provide little inspiration to a group of players that have truly been through it all over the past few months. An early Rayan Cherki goal through a deflection put City ahead at 11 minutes, before Antoine Semenyo doubled their lead with a minute to go in normal time, leaving Spurs two down with a chorus of boos to end the first half.

Cue half time, and Thomas Frank opted to switch to a 4-4-2, allowing the team to match City man to man in the midfield battle, combined with the late introductions of Mathys Tel and Wilson Odobert which seemed to add that little bit of life to Frank’s struggling Spurs side. Dominic Solanke, who has spent most of this season sidelined recovering from injury, truly showed signs of living up to the promise of his £65 million transfer fee paid in the summer of 2024. His first goal was a magnificent touch of class, mirroring the work of the great centre forwards that have represented the club before him. A perfect pass from Xavi Simons, who has had his own struggles this season, set him up to bully Abdukodir Khusanov and Marc Guehi to score the first goal for Tottenham which sparked the comeback early on in the second half. Not only did the goal give hope to the players, but the supporters too, who roared back in response, spurring the 11 on in turn.

Solanke’s second goal was truly incredible, excellent work from Conor Gallagher in the midfield led him to deliver a searching ball from the right hand side, to which Solanke truly delivered a moment of perfect improvisation at minute 70’. A scorpion kick which looped over the reaching hand of Gianluigi Donnarumma to tie the game for Spurs, who pressed on for the winner but it wasn’t to be. For Solanke to score two in this game is an example of his fortitude after being sidelined for a majority of the season as aforementioned, and it can’t be stated enough how important this goal is to Spurs’ players and manager.

This result leaves Tottenham 14th in the Premier League table, 11 points off the Champions League places, but there is much more work to be done if they are to have even the faintest hopes of qualifying for next seasons premium European competition through the Premier League.

Spurs’ makeshift defence played their part incredibly well in the second half, with João Palhinha forming a solid partnership with Radu Dragusin, who made his first start since January of last year. Archie Gray was solid at right back, holding his own against Antoine Semenyo, and Destiny Udogie played his part on the opposite flank. Such performances will be encouraging to Thomas Frank, as he was without Micky Van de Ven, Pedro Porro, Djed Spence, Kevin Danso, and Cristian Romero who was substituted as half time due to illness.

Xavi Simons truly came to his own during this game. Any Tottenham fan will tell you this was the sharpest he has looked since joining the club in the summer for a fee of £65 million. He truly ran the game today, utilised on the left hand side, allowed the freedom to drift across the pitch as he wished to which was reminiscent of his glory days at Leipzig. Spurs fans can only hope for this kind of performance to give him a boost to end his debut season in English football on a high.

As for Dom Solanke… What an incredible effort! In a season where Spurs have lacked inspiration on numerous occasion, this moment of improvisation is truly one of the best moments of Tottenham’s season. Since his return from injury, he now has 4 goals in 6 appearances, of which 3 he appeared from the bench. It is now safe to say he will end the season as Tottenham’s starting number 9 as long as he remains fit, considering the struggles Tottenham have had with scoring from open play.

The fact that this result came at home is even more precious to the Tottenham Hotspur faithful, as their home form has been subject to ridicule since the penultimate season of Ange Postecoglou. Hopefully, Thomas Frank now has a base to build on, as he has now picked up 4 points in matches against a team which is very much still in the race for the Premier League title.

Before the game, a walkout was scheduled to take place in the 75th minute by Change for Tottenham, and had the result remained the same as it was at half time it would very well have taken place. However, the spirit shown by Frank’s side led supporters to remain as they were and continue supporting the hosts, which was remarkable to witness. As mentioned before, Tottenham’s home form this season has been truly abysmal, and given the stakes of this game fans would be forgiven for walking out at the 75th minute. Albeit, the home fans remained faithful even after the criticism levelled at them by Frank earlier this season, and the reception at full time was a culmination of how grandiose their comeback truly was.

Frank still does remain under pressure by the fans, as a 14th place finish would surely not be enough to satisfy the Spurs hierarchy. On the other hand, Spurs did incredibly well to place 4th in the Champions League league phase, to avoid playing a 2 leg playoff match. This will inevitable buy Frank some time to motivate his players to finish off this season on a high.

On Saturday, Spurs will travel to a high flying Manchester United under the management of interim manager Michael Carrick, a fixture they haven’t lost since the reign of Antonio Conte. A similar result will likely do wonders to the reputation of Thomas Frank given such a turbulent season, but Spurs do still have a storm to weather in terms of injuries, as doubts have been cast over the availability of Micky Van de Ven, Djed Spence, Kevin Danso, Pedro Porro and Cristian Romero for the next fixture. As long as Spurs show the resilience they showed on Sunday, something they’ve been lacking all season, then they needn’t worry about a result at Old Trafford. If we see the Tottenham we saw in games such as against Burnley, West Ham and Sunderland, we may see the walkout that was promised to us on Sunday.