In case you’ve been living under a massive rock, Tottenham Hotspur are in genuine danger of being relegated from the Premier League.
No league wins in 2026, an ever-expanding injury list, no real identity and anger in the stands. None of this points towards a happy ending.
New manager Igor Tudor was quick to channel the spirit of his good friend and former Spurs boss Antonio Conte in the aftermath of the chastening defeat to Arsenal last weekend.
‘Where is the goal of this club?’ he asked, ‘Where is the goal of this team?’
Given he’s not expected to stick around past the end of the season, the answer for now should just be: ‘To not get relegated, mate.’
To be fair to the Croatian, he was asked what Spurs need to do to get out of this situation, and ‘having a goal to work towards’ is decent advice for a club that has looked rudderless for a while now.
Ange Postecolgou accused the owners of lacking ambition in a recent interview on The Overlap, and both Aston Villa and Newcastle now offer players higher wages than Spurs.
In the Premier League you tend to get what you pay for, and while they’ve spent big in terms of transfer fees, a restrictive wage structure has stopped them from taking that extra step to consistently finish in the upper echelons of the table.
Do Spurs have ‘too much quality’ to go down?
Former Spurs midfielder Danny Murphy said as much on Talksport this week: ‘My gut feeling says that they’ve got too much quality. It doesn’t mean that it can’t happen but I’d say no, looking at their fixtures there are some games there that I’d expect them to pick up enough points so I think they’ll be OK – just.’
Will they? Sure, the likes of Conor Gallagher and Xavi Simons aren’t players you’d normally associate with a team that goes down but can any of us really say, with confidence, that Spurs have too much quality?
What about West Ham? They’ve been awful this season but have looked good in recent weeks and have a talismanic figure in Jarrod Bowen who, along with Crysencio Summerville, looks to have made it his only mission on Earth to drag them out of the bottom three.
Nottingham Forest, meanwhile, have the likes of Elliot Anderson and Morgan Gibbs-White in midfield and a settled side that – lest we forget – finished 7th last season.
Take Spurs’ injuries away and yes, their players are too good to go down, but we don’t live in that world.
The reality is that Spurs’ best fit player also happens to be their captain Cristian Romero, whose tendency to lose his head and get sent off has already cost them points this season, and who won’t return from his latest suspension for another two games.
When are Tottenham's injured players expected back?
James Maddison – cruciate ligament tear. Next season.
Dejan Kulusevski – knee problem. Mid-March.
Mohammed Kudus – hamstring. April.
Rodrigo Bentancur – hamstring. April.
Wilson Odobert – cruciate ligament tear. Next season.
Pedro Porro – hamstring. Next game.
Kevin Danso – toe. Next game.
Destiny Udogie – hamstring. Mid-March.
Ben Davies – broken ankle. Next season.
Lucas Bergvall – ankle. April.
Pedro Porro and Kevin Danso could be back in the side this weekend which, given Tudor’s preference to play a three-man defence with wingbacks, would strengthen them significantly after Archie Gray and Joao Palhinha played out of position in the north London derby.
What do Tottenham need to stay up?
It’s not over until it’s over. While a four point gap is nothing for clubs at the top of the table, it’s a lot for West Ham – who also have a massive goal difference deficit – to turn around. One thing’s for certain: Spurs need to find a win from somewhere, anywhere. Sunday’s trip to a Fulham side with European ambitions of their own would be a great place to start.
Looking at their fixtures, the real key for Tudor will be fixing Spurs’ awful home form. Since the start of 2025, they’ve won just four home games in the league. That’s four wins in 23.
There are home games to come against Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest, Brighton, Leeds United and Everton. In a normal season you’d expect a couple of wins at the very least here, but given the toxic atmosphere around the Tottenham Stadium this season, it can be hard to picture what a home Spurs win looks like.
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Away from home, their record is comparatively good: five wins, four draws and four losses. The only problem is they have a pretty tricky set of away games left, against Fulham, Liverpool, Sunderland, Wolves, Aston Villa and Chelsea.
It’s easy to make the argument that they’ll struggle in nearly all of those games, but two wins and a few draws would probably be enough to just about steer clear of the disaster that would be a relegation.
Postecolgou’s Spurs finished 17th on 38 points last season. It wouldn’t be a surprise if things looked the same after the next 11 games.
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