Former Tottenham centre-back Toby Alderweireld has given a scathing assessment of the club's current plight, telling ESPN that the current crop of players are "not good enough in terms of quality" and singling out captain Cristian Romero for criticism.
Alderweireld and defensive partner Jan Vertonghen were two of the lynchpins of Mauricio Pochettino's Spurs team that consistently qualified for the Champions League and challenged for the Premier League title in 2015-16 and 2016-17. He was also pivotal in Spurs' run to the Champions League final in 2019.
Since Pochettino's sacking and the exit of star names such as Dele Alli, Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min over the following years, Spurs have slipped down the table and now find themselves facing the prospect of a once-unthinkable relegation to the Championship.
The north London club are 18th in the Premier League table with six games remaining, two points behind West Ham in 17th. Tottenham are yet to win a Premier League match in 2026.
"I think you also need to start looking at pure quality," Alderweireld told ESPN NL. "What do big players do? What do quality players do? That is to be decisive at important moments, achieve your level ... And that has not been happening all season.
"Players who were acquired for a lot of money but who nevertheless don't deliver and not in just one or two matches or a period, but throughout the whole season.
"You just have to conclude that they are not good enough in terms of quality."
Alderweireld's comments are made all the more notable because he is among the first of Spurs' former stars to share his thoughts about the club's disastrous season.
He highlighted the form of Romero and centre-back partner Micky van de Ven, saying they haven't stepped up this season.
"I look at Romero, I look at Van de Ven ... They just aren't reaching their level," he said. "Again, not for a period, but actually for an entire season.
"Then I also look at Romero who gets red cards too often, doesn't make the right decisions and therefore lets his team down."
Spurs have tried to stop their slide into the relagation zone by hiring and firing managers with Roberto De Zerbi coming in as the club's third manager of the season earlier this month following the disastrous tenures of Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor.
However, Alderweireld has said it is the players, not managers, who must take greater responsibility for Spurs' downfall.
"Now you notice that the coach isn't the problem, it's really purely the squad," Alderweireld said. "The quality in the squad, the responsibilities of the players. You could always put another coach in charge, but you notice that they just don't deliver what they need to deliver.
"And that is ultimately just quality."
The former Belgium international also noted that he believes there are "structural problems" that have led to the team's decline.
"It comes down to shaping the right people, the right team. And those purchases have gone wrong, and that has been happening year after year. So that is indeed a structural problem," he said.
"I have also read that the club is run fantastically from a business perspective, but not as a football club and as a football club everything matters. Your value is on the pitch, and that shows what the club looks like. And that's not good."