Hotspur HQ

Tottenham Hotspur sporting director Johan Lange is obviously not the most popular person in North London, except maybe among Arsenal fans (including potentially Vinai Venkatesham), but even his biggest detractors in the Spurs fan base have to admit that there is one thing about him that deserves the highest of praise: his talent ID.

Spurs have a great collection of young talent on their hands, and with Igor Tudor actually competently leading the ship and getting more out of them than Thomas Frank did, we are starting to see the extent of some of the players Lange brought in for cheaper than what they are worth now.

Lucas Bergvall was obviously a huge hit from the get for for Lange, but now Archie Gray is looking at least as brilliant of a signing in the center midfield. And even though Lange totally botched helping Tottenham Hotspur in the short term by signing the underwhelming Conor Gallagher - and nobody else - in the January transfer window, the signing of the future Souza has been even better than advertised as a left back - and even in the other random positions Tudor is throwing him in.

Johan Lange has a great eye for talent

Imagine if Tottenham were able to have a sporting director a step above Fabio Paratici who could sign established players and broker smart deals with well constructed contracts and innovative transfer fee packages that could compete with the other elites of Europe. If they could have a better traditional sporting director and then let Lange focus on leading a scouting network that could find more players like these guys, Spurs would be a formidable force in English football.

As it stands, Tottenham have to take a whole lot of issues with Lange in order to obtain the positive of his talent identification. But that positive is huge for a club like Spurs that does need to cycle in young talents in order to build a team that could potentially compete at the highest level of the Champions League in the future.

Watching Archie Gray play these last few weeks has been an absolute treat, and the only thing Tottenham Hotspur fans can think - other than absolute joy at having one of the best young holding midfielders in the Premier League - is how on earth Thomas Frank was keeping this guy locked up behind Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur to start the season.

That was not Frank's only ill with Gray, of course. Despite burying him to start with, Gray was so good that even Frank had to start him over Bentancur at some point. But even then, Gray, like Lucas Bergvall and Xavi SImons, was being actively held back by Frank tactically despite being the one deep lying midfielder brave enough to try and drive the ball forward.

With Igor Tudor stepping in charge as Spurs manager, Tottenham have been more expansive and capable of creating chances. While it only yielded the one goal against Liverpool in a draw last weekend, Spurs were able to grab three against a usually tough Atletico Madrid defense, ripping them apart with precision with Gray as the grand architect from deep, siphoning play to Mathys Tel and Xavi Simons.

Thomas Frank was making Archie Gray look less brilliant

While Gray is far from the only Tottenham Hotspur standout to have suffered under Frank, his transformation almost immediately into a top class midfielder with Tudor in charge is perhaps the biggest indictment on how incompetent Frank was as a manager in his lack of talent ID and especially his inability to organize a functioning Premier League unit in midfield that can create chances.

Frank was hailed as a genius at Brentford, and now the fan theory that he was simply hired because he would just implement the Bees pre defined analytical principles is gaining more credence. He may a fraud of the highest order, simply propped up by a media that was inexplicably treating him with kid's gloves even as he turned a club as massive as Spurs, that had just won the Europa League and made a ton of signings that even Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho never got, into an utter laughingstock in the relegation zone.

Xavi Simons stole the show in Tottenham Hotspur's 3-2 win over Atletico Madrid in the second leg of the Champions League Round of 16, scoring an insane goal from beyond the blue before depositing a penalty that he himself had won.

It was a vintage performance from Simons, the best yet in a Tottenham shirt and a throw back to win he was regularly carving up defenses in the Dutch Eredivisie and the German Bundesliga. Simons is one of the best young midfielders in world football, and when Spurs signed him for 60 million euros this summer transfer window, that is exactly the player they thought they were getting.

But anyone could plainly see that under Thomas Frank, he was being set up to fail. Tottenham were playing the most lethargic and uninspiring football of any team in the Premier League, with Simons totally isolated as a No. 10 who never even got to play as a 10.

Xavi Simons actually has options now

He had nobody to pass it to. Simons would get the ball and immediately be met with double the defenders as attacking players, and Frank never tweaked the tactics so that his best player would have people to actually play off of.

Igor Tudor immediately fixed that. Well, not immediately, but he has pretty quickly found a way for Simons to get more involved with the rest of his attacking teammates. The Dutch star's two goals will get the headlines for Spurs, but he also had five key passes and was just as brilliant as a creator as he was as a scorer - maybe even more brilliant, considering one of the goals was a penalty.

Tottenham Hotspur spent big on Simons to be their main creator both in terms of his passing and dribbling, and we finally got to see both of those traits together - and against a big opponent like Atleti, no less.

Tottenham Hotspur fans were initially satisfied with the loan move for PSG striker Randal Kolo Muani. Though he started his Spurs career with the deadest of dead legs, the woodenness of his limb had recovered, and Kolo Muani was playing some good football, certainly better in terms of all around play than Richarlison.

Kolo Muani seemed to have sealed his status as the top guy at striker for Tottenham after a brilliant hat trick in a losing Champions League effort against parent club PSG, with some fans even clamoring for Johan Lange and Co. to begin permanent transfer negotiations.

But that purple patch lasted all too quickly, as Kolo Muani's play devolved into something worse than even Richarlison's bad days. Kolo Muani became lethargic and listless, a character who did not even care, to the point where he was reportedly asking for a cancellation of his loan move in the winter.

Randal Kolo Muani made the latest French squad

Lately, though, with Tottenham Hotspur in their moment of need, Kolo Muani is starting to show up. He assisted the winner against Liverpool last weekend and scored the opener against Atletico Madrid. And now, despite all his poor play these last few months, he has found himself in the official French national team squad for the March international break.

And therein lies the likely reason behind Kolo Muani's sudden return to scoring and assisting form, as well as the most compelling reason for the hired mercenary to actually care about Tottenham. If Kolo Muani can play well and help Spurs stay up, the French federation and manager Didier Deschamps will have to take notice and keep him in the World Cup squad this year.

Randal Kolo Muani is probably the weakest forward in the French team, and it is still surprising, even looking back, that he had such a key role in the last French World Cup squad in Qatar. But the French brass have taken a liking to Kolo Muani for some reason, and if he can avoid screwing it up by, you know, not giving a crap about his current club, then he should maintain his spot in the squad for the World Cup.

A selfish motivation in Tottenham's favor is certainly much better than no motivation at all, and if playing for Les Bleus in the Americas is what Kolo Muani needs to hear to start playing to the (relatively) high level he is capable of, then Spurs fans will gladly take that to the bank for these final few months.

Tottenham Hotspur finally look like a competently run team, and though the bar is set on the ground, Spurs were unable to even clear that for months under Thomas Frank. Although Igor Tudor is no tactical genius and his standoffish attitude can be a bit, well, off putting, the 3-2 win over Atletico Madrid was a clear sign that he is moving Spurs in a better direction than where they were before.

Spurs were actually defending well as a unit, minus a couple of blips, and they were actually capable of driving the ball forward and creating chances against a good team. Similarly, they looked quite good for most of the game against Liverpool, and the biggest difference is that they can actually string passes together and get on goal more than once or twice in a game.

It raises the question of how Frank even got the job in the first place. He must have been an all time fraud to have taken a team that started the season very well when they were still running on Ange Postecoglou's ideals, then turned them into the biggest embarrassment possible. He was the coach of the first 4-1 Arsenal loss, but even the second 4-1 Arsenal loss under Tudor clearly had Frank's thumb prints all over it.

Igor Tudor is already fixing Thomas Frank's mess

That's the thing. Tudor's slow start and the horrible play of Tottenham Hotspur as a team was likely a consequence of Frank bleeding over, and now the Atleti and Liverpool performances are signs of Tudor already fixing those ills after needing that adjustment period. Even the tough losses to Atletico Madrid in the first leg and Crystal Palace were more down to bad luck out of Tudor's control, because outside the Antonin Kinksy slips and the Micky van de Ven red card, Spurs were outplaying those opponents.

The fact that Thomas Frank pushed this team into relegation and could not make use of talents like Archie Gray, Mathys Tel, Lucas Bergvall, and more speaks volumes, and immediately Tudor has turned some of these guys into the studs that they are.

Brentford must get a ton of credit for not only being better this season without Frank, which is a red flag in its own right, but they also deserve a ton of credit for propping up a manager as seemingly incompetent as Frank so that Tottenham hired him to universal praise. Frank is Tottenham's most dreadful manager in memory, and if Spurs can survive the drop this season, the fact that they survived him should excite supporters for what could be to come in 2026/27 under someone much better.

Earlier than expected and without much more than a day's warning, Lucas Bergvall returned from another significant injury to give Tottenham Hotspur a boost, seeing out a 3-2 win over Atletico Madrid in the Champions League that serves as an important morale victory with the thick of the Premier League relegation battle on the horizon.

Bergvall is one of the bigges gems at Tottenham, and he was one of the team's best players in the 2024/25 season before going down with his first big injury before he could partake in the Europa League Final that he helped Spurs reach.

Now, Bergvall joins a midfield that should be even better going forward, because in his absence, another young gem, Archie Gray, has stepped up with even more impressive performances than the Swedish international.

Tottenham need to use the future now

Bergvall and Gray complement each other so well. Gray is the holding midfielder who screens the defense and makes plays, while Bergvall is a world class athlete and a fiery No. 8 who can run from box to box, even contributing to goals. Both young men were held back by Thomas Frank, and seeing Gray shine under Igor Tudor gives Bergvall hope that he can do the same.

The duo is the clear starting bedrock of a Tottenham Hotspur midfield that is finally begining to click into place with its best players. And ahead of them, Xavi Simons is the man to finish out the ideal midfield trio for Spurs, starting as the No. 10. Judging by how he performed against Atletico Madrid, he, too, like Gray, is ready to play his best football away from Frank.

Gray, Bergvall, and Simons together is an incredible midfield trio for Tottenham both in the short and long term. Most Spurs supporters would have told you before the season started that this trio would be the ideal group to start, but Frank spent so much time forcing the veterans like Rodrigo Bentancur and Joao Palhinha into the starting lineup, perhaps because he knew those players better and had no idea what to do with the young stars.

But the future is now for Tottenham. Tudor is at least a competent manager, and he has found the winning formula in Gray, Bergvall, and Simons without even trying. With Bergvall back in the saddle after the injury, he is set to integrate seamlessly into this young and hungry trident, and they will need to be at their best in this relegation fight.

Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest have a lot of bad blood between them heading into Sunday's must win Premier League relegation six pointer. Spurs have just a few points on Forest in the table, and they are not going to take that slim lead for granted. After drawing Liverpool and beating Atletico Madrid, who are both into the Champions League quarterfinals, Spurs believe they are slowly finding their footing again under Igor Tudor.

Forest recently had two former Tottenham managers in Ange Postecoglou and Nuno Espirito Santo, and while those guys are bigger names, it has been Vitor Pereira who has suddenly turned Forest into a pretty tricky side to face.

Tottenham cannot afford to slip, because every mistake brings them closer to the nightmare of being a relegated Big Six club. Spurs especially cannot afford to slip against Forest, who are right there nipping at their heels. And after Evangelos Marinakis blocked Tottenham from the Morgan Gibbs-White signing in the summer transfer window, there would be an even more humilitating feeling at the thought of losing to Forest and then getting relegated by them in the end.

Nottingham Forest rested their stars before Tottenham

At mid week, Tottenham played their key players in a difficult second leg against Atletico Madrid, and though they did win, they did not complete the comeback and were eliminated. Nottingham Forest, meanwhile, benched almost all of their stars for the match against Midtjylland, but then brought them on in the second half as they came from behind to win on penalties.

The fact that Forest cared enough to rest their key players in a crucial second leg Europa League knockout tie that they were still very much in, down 1-0 on aggregate coming into the game, was a huge statement of intent from Marinakis, Pereira, and the organization that they are coming for Tottenham. Their No. 1 goal is to stay alive and relegated Spurs in the process.

So the additional fact that Forest still won, bringing on stars Elliot Anderson and Morgan Gibbs-White in the second half (among several other key players), is just added motivation for Tottenham to not screw this up and to put Forest in their place.

Tottenham are the bigger club, and they need to show it on Sunday. Forest are through to the next round, and while Spurs faced a much tougher opponent in Atleti, the reality is that they are out of their European competition. Now, the onus is on them to win.

Mathys Tel has become a favorite for many Tottenham Hotspur fans, and even though his young teammate Archie Gray has been the one to truly step into the spotlight over the last couple of weeks, the young Frenchman has been a real bright spot, too, benefiting from the switch in manager from Thomas Frank to Igor Tudor.

Unlike Frank, Tudor has actually consistently been giving Tel chances, and the 20 year old left winger is now stapling a regular spot in the Spurs starting lineup under the interim coach. Tel has predictably been excellent since getting that blessing from the coach, registering the opening assist with a gorgeous cross to Randal Kolo Muani in a 3-2 win over Atletico Madrid in the Champions League.

Tel shining under Tudor is a reminder of just how horrendous of a manager Frank was. Not only was he losing a ton of games, but he also set Tottenham up so negatively that they could not help but lose, even against clearly inferior opposition. Tel would be great in games off the bench and even score important goals, but Frank would not reward him with starts, possibly because the French youth international dared to commit the unforgivable sin of actually trying to score goals.

Mathys Tel has earned these minutes

Tudor at least embraces Tel's goal scoring instincts and verve to drive the ball into the box and shoot. Tel has not quit rewarded himself in front of goal under the Italian coach, but everything else, including the explosiveness and underrated creativity, are clearly there. The last remaining doubters in Tel are slowly starting to become believers, too, and the assist for Kolo Muani vs. the Rojiblancos likely helped.

Firing Frank was a decision that should have come months earlier, in all honesty, and while nobody will sit there and call Tudor the second coming of Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp, he looks a lot better than Frank. And what Tel is doing in the lineup for Spurs under Tudor's tutelage is only serving to galvanize the fan sentiment that Frank should have been done with a whole lot sooner by the Tottenham brass.

At the time, Spurs supporters knew Frank was ghastly and one of the worst managers they had seen. But now watching Mathys Tel play at a high level against some pretty big opponents with regular minutes, it really serves to show that Frank may have been even worse than they thought.

This time, Archie Gray's tremendous individual efforts were rewarded as part of a Tottenham Hotspur victory, but even when Spurs have been at their most woeful in the past few weeks, the 20 year old center midfielder has shown a quality above the rest of his teammates - and even the opposition.

Gray was wonderful in the 3-2 win over Atletico Madrid, ruling the midfield, with even Atleti star Marcos Llorente, who used to be a key player for the mighty Real Madrid, going out of his way to shake the former Leeds United man's hand.

You can see why Gray is so coveted by the big clubs around Europe, including Bayern Munich and that very same Real Madrid, and you can also see why Spurs are so worried about losing him. And after watching how brilliant he was in helping Spurs dismantle Atletico Madrid on a Champions League night, Tottenham fans have to be that much more against the idea of relegation from the Premier League - including those insane enough to think that relegation will be good for resetting the club.

Tottenham can't lose Archie Gray

Relegation would almost certainly mean losing Gray, becaue if Spurs get relegated, it will be even easier for thos elite clubs like Bayern and Real to pry him away. And Gray, as brilliant as he has been for Tottenham of late, is not ready for that kind of a move yet. When agents start getting involved and these big clubs and big fees are thrown around, you never know what can happen.

Tottenham Hotspur simply cannot leave things up to chance. Archie Gray is a gem of a footballer and an ideal modern midfielder in that deep playmaking role with his technical quality, bravery, versatility, and defensive coverage. Losing Gray is, if Spurs even needed another incentive, all the more reason to avoid any remote possibility of going down to the EFL Championship.

So as Tottenham fans watch Gray dazzle in the middle of the park, the knowledge that a talent of his caliber could leave should spark a fear in them that leads to even more vociferous cheers going forward. When relegation is on the line, losing the future world class players like Gray is also on the line, so survival is not just for the short term but for those long term ambitions every Tottenham Hotspur fan still has - and must have - of Premier League titles.

One of Thomas Frank's great oversights, especially when faced with a torrid availability crisis, was his unwillingness to turn to the club's academy.

A mightily unpopular figure come the end of his tenure, Frank did hand Jun'ai Byfield his senior debut in the Champions League and gave Luca Williams-Barnett a few minutes in the Carabao Cup, but that was it.

Embracing youth is almost a popularity cheat code for a manager, with supporters desperate to retain the sense of community that's gradually being eroded at the highest level. Seeing kids from the academy earn opportunities of a lifetime helps reinforce that connection.

Since rocking up on English shores, Igor "he doesn't know our game" Tudor has been chastised and borderline patronised; seen almost like a Borat figure because his expertise lies in the antiquated lands of Serie A, where the football is slow and everyone plays 3-5-2.

An admittedly poor start to his tenure left me sceptical, and the nightmare of an evening against Crystal Palace meant I was advocating for his sacking. I just didn't see any light at the end of any tunnels, only oncoming trains, but Tudor has proved plenty of panicked supporters wrong over the past 180 minutes of Tottenham Hotspur football we dreaded not so long ago.

The 47-year-old Croat, who was managing Italian minnows *Juventus* as recently as October, has proven himself to be not merely an adaptable football coach, but also an adroit politician who knows how to capture public feeling.

Trust in Tottenham's youth has aided Tudor's cause

Suddenly, there's hope in north London.

The draw at Anfield was followed up by our best performance in the best part of two years. Sure, it contributed to our Champions League exit, but winning Wednesday's second leg against Atlético Madrid felt hugely significant heading into Sunday's relegation six-pointer.

As a result of a newfound lease of life facilitated by Tudor, the club is starting to feel unified again. It's no longer a fixture to dread, but one that should be met head-on. Victory over Nottingham Forest, given what's immediately come before it, means the Doomsday scenario of Championship football will seldom be considered during the international break.

It's bound to be a special atmosphere for what's our most significant domestic fixture in years, and that's not merely because of the occasion, nor as a result of Wednesday's excellent performances. Tudor's helped shift the narrative by turning to teenagers.

Callum Olusesi hasn't generated anywhere near the buzz that any of Williams-Barnett, Byfield, or even Tynan Thompson have, yet the 19-year-old midfielder, in back-to-back games, has been handed Premier League and Champions League debuts at critical junctures.

And guess what, the kid looked at ease. These academy starlets are good! Fabio Paratici was rather hit-and-miss on the recruitment front, but boy, did he do a stellar job to regenerate a stagnant academy in north London. He helped do the same at Juventus, and Luciano Spalletti is the latest to reap the rewards.

Olusesi may not amount to anything at Tottenham, but that's beyond the point. Tudor's trust in an exciting academy has helped foster the sudden feeling of hope in what are still perilous times. There may be fewer opportunities as more senior players return, but the teenager must believe that there's a pathway for him to succeed at Spurs, one that was seemingly blocked by Frank.

The interim manager is certainly winning me over, and those who believe ’Arry Redknapp is the answer may have their minds changed come Sunday evening.