Tottenham Hotspur run the risk of relegation this season, but all of these problems could have been avoided with better decision-making by the club. We have now highlighted five things Spurs must do to avoid a similar slump next campaign (if they stay up, that is).
Where do you even begin? Three managers, a squad ravaged by injuries, and now the very real prospect of relegation from the Premier League for the first time since 1977. From 17th last season to 18th this campaign – entering the relegation zone for the first time since January 2009 – the trajectory has been nothing short of alarming.
Roberto De Zerbi is here now, and there is genuine excitement about what he could build – but none of that matters if the club walks into the summer without learning from what went wrong and improving on it.
Here are five things that simply cannot happen again…
Nobody is going to pretend Johnson was irreplaceable. He had lost his place to Kudus, his starts were drying up, and Crystal Palace were willing to pay £35m. The logic was understandable – cash in while the opportunity was there and reinvest in the squad.
The problem was the second part never happened. Letting him leave in January without signing a winger to cover left Spurs badly exposed when Kudus went down almost immediately after.
Frank acknowledged it was a “risk” at the time, and with the benefit of hindsight, it was one that cost them dearly. Rayan Viktor, a player Spurs had been watching for months, went to Bournemouth for £25m in the same window and has been outstanding since. His value is now pushing £87m. The sale was not necessarily wrong – the failure to act alongside it was.
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Spurs must learn from this and bolster key areas of their squad to better deal with what is a recurring injury crisis.
To be fair to the club, replacing Harry Kane was never going to be straightforward. He is arguably the greatest striker in Tottenham’s history, and no single signing was ever going to fill that gap overnight.
Solanke came in for £65m with genuine pedigree after an outstanding season at Bournemouth, and on his day, he has shown exactly why Spurs wanted him. But injuries have derailed his time at the club repeatedly, and when he has played, the goals have not come consistently enough – he missed 12 big chances in his debut season alone.
Kolo Muani and Mathys Tel offered some spark on loan, but were never long-term answers. Three years on, the club are still being linked with strikers like Marcos Leonardo from Al-Hilal as the search continues. This summer has to be the one where it gets properly resolved
Vicario deserves enormous credit for his time at Tottenham. He has been excellent between the sticks, played through pain on more than one occasion, and was a key part of the Europa League triumph. But his limitations with the ball at his feet have been a talking point for some time, and with De Zerbi now in charge, that weakness is impossible to ignore.
De Zerbi’s former goalkeeping coach made it clear that the Italian demands a keeper who is deeply involved in the build-up – not one who goes long under pressure. Vicario has reportedly said yes to Inter Milan, and with the pursuit of Verbruggen already getting complicated by Bayern Munich’s interest, Spurs need to move quickly. The issue was always going to surface eventually – the regret is that it was not addressed sooner.
So, Spurs must now get a goalkeeper that fits their style of play ahead of next season. One good with the ball at his feet and capable of making crucial saves. James Trafford looks like the best option they have been linked with in recent weeks.
There were moments this season when you could see what Spurs were trying to build in midfield. Gray has been outstanding, Bergvall has grown into the role, and when Maddison has been available he has shown his quality. The issue is what sits around them. Gallagher has looked lost for much of the season, and Palhinha – for all his defensive qualities – has been exposed in a system that demands more on the ball.
De Zerbi has already made Locatelli his priority – a midfielder he shaped at Sassuolo and someone who understands exactly how the Italian wants the game to be played.Gray and Bergvall have shown they can handle a possession-heavy system, but they need the right experienced heads around them. Getting that balance right in the summer is not optional.
Losing Kulusevski, Odobert, and Maddison for significant periods — on top of the Kudus injury that had already exposed the Johnson sale — is the kind of misfortune that would test any squad. Buteleven players out simultaneously is not just bad luck – it is a depth problem.
Kudus alone missed 13 games after his quad injury in January, and with Johnson already gone, there was simply nobody to fill in. This is now the second consecutive season where Spurs have found themselves in this position, and that pattern is hard to ignore. De Zerbi has shown at Brighton and Marseille that he can get the best out of a well-constructed squad. Giving him one to work with has to be the priority this summer.
What De Zerbi needs this summer
De Zerbi’s appointment feels like a genuine turning point for this club. He has the tactical identity, the ambition, and from everything we have seen in training, the personality to get Tottenham playing the kind of football the fanbase has been craving. But the best manager in the world can only do so much with the wrong players around him.
If the club backs him properly this summer – addresses the depth issues, finds the right striker, sorts the goalkeeper situation, and recruits a midfield that actually fits the system – there is no reason why next season cannot look very different. The mistakes have been made. The question now is whether the right lessons have been learned.