The games keep on coming for Ange Postecoglou's depleted Tottenham side as we enter the busy festive period. Playing every three or four days since domestic football resumed after November's international break, have had to try and navigate a hectic schedule as best as possible with a host of first-team regulars in the treatment room.

as they fell to a 6-3 defeat against the Premier League table toppers. Postecoglou and his players won't have time to stew on their eighth league defeat of the term, though, as they return to action on Boxing Day with a fixture at high-flying Nottingham Forest.

Tottenham have won on their last two league visits to the City Ground but Thursday's game promises to be a different challenge altogether with side currently occupying the fourth and final Champions League place. Despite a rather draining Carabao Cup fixture against Manchester United in midweek, .

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was one of those tipped to come back into the team after missing out in midweek but he was an unused substitute for the game against Arne Slot's men. Speaking on after the match, Postecoglou issued an update on the left-back and explained why he didn't feature.

“Hopefully, Destiny will be okay. He wasn’t quite right today, we had him on the bench, hopefully he’ll be closer to it. They are the main two at the moment," said the Australian on Udogie and Spurs teammate .

"We’re kind of hoping Ben Davies, Mikey Moore and Richarlison aren’t too far away after that but, for Thursday, it’s probably just Destiny and Rodrigo.”

After opting to keep faith with the same XI for the Liverpool match rather than injecting some fresh legs into the team, Postecoglou has no choice but to tinker with his side at the City Ground. It was evident in the Liverpool defeat that Tottenham were lacking energy compared to their opponents and the boss is going to have to do what he can in terms of rotation as we enter another busy week.

Bentancur will certainly be pushing for a start at Nottingham Forest after completing his seven-match domestic ban. The Uruguayan may not have featured in the Premier League since the Ipswich Town defeat in early November but he did crucially play a decent amount of minutes in the Roma and Rangers Europa League fixtures.

Bentancur will be a contender to come into midfield and the same goes for . Very good in his first Premier League start eight days ago at Southampton, the teenager played 32 minutes off the bench in the defeat to Liverpool.

In terms of possibly giving players such as , Pape Matar Sarr and a rest, Bentancur and Bergvall will be raring to go against Espirito Santo's team. Udogie is another who will be hoping he gets the nod as the Liverpool match came too soon for him.

If in a position to start, , despite some excellent performances of late, may be the player to make way for the former Udinese man. The other option would be for Pedro Porro to get a much-needed rest and Spence moves across to right-back to allow Udogie to take his place on the left.

Postecoglou also has the chance to make a couple of changes in attack if he wants to do so. was perhaps a tad unfortunate not to start against Liverpool as he would have given the team a pair of fresh legs in their hour of need.

The winger did come on just prior to the hour mark and . He was also unlucky moments later not to get a goal for himself after Alisson saved low down when Johnson looked to cap off a very impressive Tottenham move.

is the final option to come into the team on the left of Spurs' attack. The German did use his pace to go on a couple of runs down the wing in the closing stages of the match but he unfortunately couldn't find a way through.

Amid Son's struggles to really influence things in the final third, Werner could be an option to replace the Spurs captain in the XI at Nottingham Forest. However, if that is the case, he will need to deliver a strong performance after coming in for criticism on his last start at Rangers following an extremely poor display.

At a time when Postecoglou is short on players and his regular starters are tired after a very challenging week, the Spurs boss will have to freshen things up if the north London club are to return to winning ways.

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