Tottenham sit 11th in the Premier League and will be hurting after they were thrashed 6-3 by Liverpool on Sunday, but Spurs face a difficult test to return to winning ways against surprise package Nottingham Forest at the City Ground on Boxing Day for a 3pm kick-off.
Forest have moved up to fourth in the table and their manager Nuno Espirito Santo would dearly love to get one over his former club.
Nuno had just 17 matches in charge of Tottenham before being replaced by Antonio Conte in November 2021, but he has since restored his reputation with a fantastic spell at Forest, first keeping them in the Premier League before leading them to the dizzy heights of fighting for Champions League qualification.
Nottingham Forest vs Tottenham Predicted XIs
Danilo and Ibrahim Sangare remain sidelined for Nottingham Forest
Nottingham Forest (4-2-3-1): Sels; Aina, Milenkovic, Murillo, Williams; Yates, Anderson; Elanga, Gibbs-White, Hudson-Odoi; Wood
Rodrigo Bentancur returns from a seven-match suspension and Postecoglou says Destiny Udogie is back to full fitness. Centre-backs Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero and Ben Davies are among those still injured.
Tottenham (4-2-3-1): Forster; Porro, Dragusin, Gray, Udogie; Sarr, Bentancur; Kulusevski, Maddison, Son; Solanke.
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Nottingham Forest vs Tottenham Team News
Nuno switched to a back three for Saturday’s 2-0 win over Brentford which was Forest’s fourth win in their last five matches.
Morato replaced Ryan Yates for the trip to west London and Nuno was rewarded with a clean sheet as well as goals either side of half-time from Ola Aina and Anthony Elanga.
Winger Elanga earned his starting spot after turning the Aston Villa game on its head with an injury-time winner from the bench and Forest are beginning to share the goals around having relied on Chris Wood for the majority of the season.
Wood has netted 10 Premier League goals and four of those have been headers which might make Spurs fans nervous as they head to Nottingham missing several key players.
Centre-backs Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Ben Davies are sidelined, along with first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, and the makeshift pairing of Radu Dragusin and Archie Gray looked uncomfortable during Sunday’s 6-3 defeat to Liverpool.
Manager Ange Postecoglou does not have many options to help find a solution, however, he remains committed to playing on the front foot.
Tottenham’s last three league games have produced 21 goals and they were also on the right end of a seven-goal thriller to see off Manchester United in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals just before Christmas.
There are some positives to take, not least the form of Dejan Kulusevski. The Swede has scored in each of his last five appearances.
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Postecoglou is second favourite with bookmakers behind West Ham’s Julen Lopetegui to be the next Premier League manager to leave his job and the pressure, at least externally, continues to build on the outspoken Australian.
A naivety is being blamed in parts and it is hard to fathom how a team with the most goals scored (39) in this season’s Premier League can be in the bottom half of the table.
However, quite bizarrely, no team has conceded fewer away goals in this season’s Premier League than Tottenham’s tally of eight.
It feels impossible to predict what Tottenham will turn up at the City Ground, but if they don’t turn their season around soon, then Postecoglou might not see the campaign through.
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