So, you're in a relegation battle. Ok, don't worry, this is a judgment-free zone. Sure, it's a bit weird that you're pulling in three-quarters of a billion dollars in revenue and can't extricate yourself from the bottom teams. Honestly, though, that's the last we need to talk about that for now. Tottenham Hotspur, you are where you are. No sense focusing on how you got there right now. Let's talk about how you get out of it.
Given that you are not deeply familiar with how this whole scrap for survival works -- yes, we know you were 17th last season, but it wasn't a real 17th, there were three teams behind you so bad that you were always safe -- it's probably worth starting with the very, very obvious. If this is a race for survival and there are three beasts racing to drag the pack into the depths of the Championship, then there is no obligation on Spurs to be the fastest. You simply need to be the fourth slowest. And you even have a bit of a head start to play with. You sit sixteenth, two points ahead of Nottingham Forest, and, crucially, four points ahead of West Ham.
Those four points matter because they are four points West Ham have to get just to start the conversation about who might go down between them and their cross-London nemeses. If the Irons were to continue on the point-gathering trajectory that they set themselves at the start of this season, then they would need four or five games just to get level with Tottenham. There is breathing space there.
That's the reason for cheer, the sort of welcome boost that Dr. Tottenham has been administering to patients all the way through 2026. The bad news is that the patient in West Ham colors has shown clear signs of life lately. Since the start of 2026 -- that dread period in which Spurs have won no domestic matches -- the club from east London have picked up 11 points in nine games. Worse still for you, Tottenham, they're trending in a direction that would suggest they'll get even more.
Their non-penalty expected goal (npxG) difference per game is 0.21 over that time period, the eighth-best mark in the division. Their actual defensive record has been spoiled by a 5-2 loss to Liverpool, but allowing a reasonable 1.20 npxG per game suggests Nuno Espirito Santo is delivering the sort of consistent adequacy that is why Spurs hired him all those years ago. And why Nottingham Forest probably shouldn't have sacked him earlier this season, and three coaches ago.
In their defeats against Liverpool and the draws with Bournemouth and Manchester United, West Ham could have felt hard done by when they looked at the xG. They might feel even worse a few months down the line. Their run-in is pretty horrible. At home to the top two, away to Europe chasers like Aston Villa, Brentford and Newcastle. There aren't a lot of banker points on the road to May for West Ham, and that's good news for you Tottenham.
So is the fact that, while West Ham have much better underlying metrics than Tottenham, Nottingham Forest don't, really. Only time will tell whether Evangelos Marinakis blinked in sacking Sean Dyche, whose side was certainly wobbling early in the new year, but he has traded out a manager with a consistent record of keeping ordinary teams in the Premier League for a manager who did it once last season, Vitor Pereira. There is certainly enough talent in that squad to get on a run, but you could hardly blame any of the Forest players if their heads are fried now they're on coach number four of the year.
And they too have tricky fixtures, their run in rated about as difficult as those of Tottenham, who you'll notice have not really come up that often in this article about their chances of surviving the drop. Weird, no? Perhaps not if you consider the fight for survival as an inverse in the title race. If you're Manchester City or Arsenal all you can do is win your remaining games and hope the other team do you a favor. Of course Spurs could try the same approach, but if they were capable of doing anything like that they wouldn't be here in the first place.
Tottenham vs. Crystal Palace viewing information
Date: Thursday, March 5 | Time: 3 p.m. ET
Location: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium -- London
TV: USA
Odds: Tottenham +130; Draw +240; Crystal Palace +180
The reason why Opta give Tottenham only a 4.5% chance of relegation isn't a ringing endorsement of Igor Tudor or his players. There might be a bit of generosity built into their ranking of last season's Europa League champions, but what matters more is how they judge Forest, West Ham and the remaining fixtures of those two. Spurs might be staggering across the line, but no projection model out there fancies their rivals to hit sprint speed. On the face of it bookmakers are rather more skeptical, you can get odds of +400 on Tottenham being relegated, an implied probability of 20%, but their priority here is not accurately market the likelihood of any event happening but to make money. If they can tempt a few flutters, maybe by fans insuring themselves against heartbreak, then they will. All the more, when the opposite side of the bet involves locking up lots of money for a relatively small return in betting that the heavy favorites to survive aren't, in fact, heavy enough.
That's the thing about being in a relegation battle, all the more so when you're a very wealthy team. Plenty of others are going to be enjoying it. You won't. This is a crawl to the finish, one where you're constantly looking over your shoulder. West Ham did what at Craven Cottage? Forest are coming to town in a few weeks and we're going to be so doomed then.
It's going to be scary. There are going to be plenty of games that you think you should win and you don't. Right now, though, as we assess the landscape with 10 games to go, it looks like everything is going to be just about all right. After all, there's only one other relegation spot and two teams much more likely to fill it.
Wait, sorry, what? Wolves just did what to Liverpool?
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.