Xavi Simons provides spark of inspiration as Spurs show overdue fight | Nick Ames

Two-goal display against Atlético gives Tudor hope his playmaker can inspire strugglers to Premier League safety
It will not have been lost on Tudor that, with Atlético Madrid three goals clear once more and the match nearing stoppage time, Simons was the player dancing into the heart of opposition territory and drawing a clumsy foul from José María Giménez.

Nor will his eagerness to stand up and convert the penalty, his second goal of the match, go unnoticed.

Easier to do, perhaps, when the stakes have been dramatically lowered; a kinder reading would be that, on a night that could have passed with scant interest, a marauding Simons cranked up the tempo and was relentless throughout.

Tottenham had begun the evening fuelled by their nutritious late point at Anfield .

At the start of that game, Tudor had seemingly mistaken a Liverpool staff member for Arne Slot in his attempts to instigate pleasantries.

This time there were no errors as he made an immediate beeline for Diego Simeone; the brooding Atlético manager is, in fairness, not easily misidentified and his team tend to bear familiar hallmarks, too.

Simons’ verve kept those fantasies alive.

How to respond when Julián Alvarez seemingly kills the tie?

Curl the best goal of your Tottenham career past Musso from 25 yards, after yet more fine work from Gray, within five minutes.

When Simons played Pedro Porro through beautifully for a shot that, taken with the outside of the foot, drew another smart stop from Musso it was the second time he had wrought a chance to take things to the wire.

In the end Spurs fell short of that and, not for the first time, could curse inattention to the basics when David Hancko headed in at the near post.

Simons’ subsequent spot‑kick caused minimal jitters in an Atlético technical area where Simeone, for the game’s middle third, had been highly exercised.

But Spurs will need the simple, yet ineffable, trait he showed here: an eagerness to take things to the bitter end when all is lost.

Those flashes of genius will come in handy, too.

Nottingham Forest should prove tougher opponents on Sunday than an Atlético side that, facing its own crunch weekend with a Madrid derby, dialled their own enthusiasm levels up and down.

When the relegation rivals kick off at lunchtime, this consolation prize of second-leg pride may smack of luxurious escapism.

Simons, though, may have shown Tudor that he is ready to get serious.