Tottenham Hotspur have lost six games in a row for the first time in their 144-year history. They are only one point above the Premier League’s relegation zone while their chances of reaching the Champions League quarter-finals are hanging by a thread following Tuesday’s humiliating 5-2 defeat by Atletico Madrid.
The players look lost, bereft of confidence and powerless to stop everything from spiralling even further out of control. Expectations are low for Sunday’s game against Liverpool but a positive performance could help them to at least regain some momentum.
Spurs need their underperforming senior players to step up. Cristian Romero has been sent off multiple times and criticised the club on social media earlier this year. Micky van de Ven’s red card against Crystal Palace led to a chaotic seven-minute spell during which they conceded three times, and the Dutchman was then lucky not to be dismissed for the second game in a row for a reckless challenge on Atletico’s David Hancko. He cannot face Liverpool due to suspension, while Romero may also be unavailable after clashing heads with Joao Palhinha late in Tuesday evening’s defeat in Spain.
Guglielmo Vicario’s form in goal has been erratic, Pedro Porro looks agitated, while James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski have not played a single minute this season due to long-term knee injuries. There have also been problems off the field as The Athletic reported last month that timekeeping was an issue during Thomas Frank’s reign.
The strain of an historically bad season can be seen in this squad. Some members who are determined to arrest the team’s decline have expressed displeasure at the application of others, who they believe are not motivated to help their cause. The Athletic has even been told that one player has expressed to his team-mates that he is not too concerned by the possibility of relegation because he believes he can and will leave the club this summer.
Tottenham are drifting, and need to find leaders somewhere, or their season will end in the ignominy of a first relegation in 49 years.
Spurs have tried to sign a fair few high-profile players over the last 12 months, including Eberechi Eze, Antoine Semenyo and Morgan Gibbs-White, but missing out on Andy Robertson in the January transfer window has proven as costly as any other. Robertson would have been a natural alternative to left-back Destiny Udogie. More importantly, Robertson, who will captain Scotland at this summer’s World Cup, would have provided this squad with some much-needed leadership.
Roberton’s comments about his potential transfer offer an invaluable insight into his character. After he scored in Liverpool’s 3-1 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers in the fifth round of the FA Cup last week, the full-back told reporters that “my focus never came off trying to help the lads on the pitch and in training” and “I’ll be committed until I’m no longer needed.”
The defender, who turned 32 on Wednesday, has only started five league games and played a total of 633 minutes this season. He has lost his place in Arne Slot’s first-choice XI to summer signing Milos Kerkez but is determined to ensure they have a successful end to the campaign.
The body language of Tottenham’s players after they conceded four goals in 22 minutes against Atletico suggests they are in desperate need of support and would have benefited from Robertson’s attitude and know-how.
Steven Caulker spent time in Tottenham’s academy before breaking into the first team during the 2012-13 season. He made 29 appearances for Spurs in total before joining Cardiff City. Cardiff finished bottom of the Premier League in the 2013-14 campaign, before Caulker again suffered relegation from the top flight with Queens Park Rangers the following season. He highlights former Spurs captain Ledley King and Portugal international Jose Fonte as two leaders who could unite squads in difficult circumstances.
“Form is temporary but you can control the way you behave and carry yourself,” Caulker, who is now an assistant coach at Turkish top-flight side Konyaspor, tells The Athletic. “I played with Jose Fonte at Southampton and he was a top professional. He was the first one in (to the training ground) and the last one out. He put an arm around you when you weren’t playing but wasn’t afraid to have a word with you if standards dropped. That created an environment where others could blossom.
“Ledley led by example. Sometimes he couldn’t train because of his knee but he would be in the gym every single day. He had a calming and reassuring presence about him. It’s not about screaming and shouting. It’s about their everyday behaviour and how they treat everybody from the cleaner to the head coach. They earn respect and back it up on the pitch. When your captain is picking up red cards, it puts him in a difficult position where players question that side of his game.
“At Cardiff, we had good leaders but we switched managers midway through the year to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and we just weren’t good enough to play the way he wanted us to. At QPR, we had a good squad but lacked unity and that created a split dressing room which cost us on the pitch. You need to strip it back to basics, drop the ego and accept the position you are in.”
Danny Higginbotham made over 200 Premier League appearances during his career across spells with Manchester United, Derby County, Southampton, Sunderland and Stoke City. He was involved in multiple relegation battles and believes having the right mindset is key.
“Everybody is looking for guidance but these players haven’t been in this situation before,” the former centre-back says. “Leeds United knew their aim for this season was survival and that there might be times where they don’t win for a month. They have to change their mindset from a group of players who had aspirations to finish in the top six at the start of the season to just fighting and scrapping for their lives but what experience do they have to lean on?”
Interim head coach Igor Tudor has stuck with a back three in all four of his games in charge but has experimented with players in different positions. Palhinha has been moved from central midfield to defence, Conor Gallagher has operated out wide, Archie Gray has been shifted from right wing-back to left wing-back and Porro started as the right-sided centre-back against Palace.
Dan Abrahams is a sports psychologist who has worked with teams and individual athletes around the world. Abrahams believes it is “critical” that everybody understands their responsibilities but encouraging individuals instead of highlighting their mistakes can help them to perform better.
“Humans have doubts, worries and fears,” Abrahams says. “Everybody is a little bit different and that is what coaching is about. To get players on board, you need to sit down with as many of them as possible and quickly get to know them. Watching footage, highlighting strengths, pinpointing areas to improve and communicating how you are going to help them builds trust and it becomes apparent you are on their side.”
Tudor has criticised Spurs’ squad publicly on multiple occasions. After the defeat by Palace, he said: “I need to choose the right guys because the boat is going in the direction that I want to go and needs to go and who is in the boat can stay. Otherwise, they can bow down, or how do you say that, leave the boat.”
Caulker believes publicly calling out players can prompt a positive reaction but it is a risky approach. “I’ve been in dressing rooms where I have thought, ‘It’s about time people stopped protecting players who aren’t on board and don’t deserve it and I’m glad he called it out’,” Caulker says.
“If everyone is onside but they are just out of form and the manager says something like that, then you have completely lost the dressing room straight away. It is a big call (for Tudor) to make without any results so he has nothing to back that up with. When you make statements like that, it leaves you isolated and judging by the result (against Atletico) it hasn’t worked.”
Higginbotham agrees that the best approach is for managers and senior players to “keep calm”.
“You need to be a man manager,” Higginbotham says. “Players are exploding on the pitch because things are not going according to plan and they don’t know how to fix it. When people say this Tottenham squad doesn’t care, I understand that argument but I think these players have zero idea of what they are doing.
“This is a group of players which includes World Cup finalists. They are not used to being in a relegation scrap. People say it’s tough at the top but it is even worse at the bottom. You have to keep players’ confidence high if they haven’t won for five weeks.”
Spurs’ club-record signing Dominic Solanke revealed the players had a “big conversation” in the dressing room following the Palace defeat. Romero could be seen shouting at his team-mates after Julian Alvarez gave Atletico a 3-0 lead. Higginbotham recalls having “heated arguments” with his team-mates at Stoke to hold each other to account.
“The difference is it wasn’t blaming each other,” he says. “Everybody has to be together. It wasn’t finger-pointing and saying to someone, ‘You are not running or good enough.’ Spurs have some incredible individual players but they are not working as a team. Against Palace, when one head dropped, the rest of them did. That is the sign of a team that is ready to combust, which has fragile confidence. If that is a team ready for a relegation fight, you go over to your team-mate and say, ‘Keep your head up’.”
There has been a disconnect between the players and the fanbase for the majority of the season, which has not helped the situation. One of the biggest flashpoints came in November when Van de Ven and Djed Spence walked straight down the tunnel without acknowledging the supporters after a 1-0 defeat at home by rivals Chelsea.
A few weeks later, Vicario was booed by sections of the crowd after making a costly error in the build-up to Harry Wilson’s winner for Fulham. Porro and Van de Ven appeared to clash with the away fans following January’s defeat by Bournemouth. The fans are, understandably, venting their frustration at the prospect of Spurs being relegated for the first time since 1977.
Speaking to Dutch broadcaster Ziggo Sport after Tuesday’s match, Van de Ven explained that he no longer looked at social media due to the strain of recent months. “I’m not on my phone anymore,” he said. “I’m completely done with it. Only family and stuff.”
He also described Tuesday’s match as “a doomsday scenario”.
“When a big club finds themselves in a position where they can be relegated, the situation becomes catastrophised,” Abrahams says. “There is so much noise in modern football. There’s no getting away from it for the players. That can make a big difference to the ability of good players to execute technically, tactically, physically. All these things can be impacted, which is why a great team can falter and fail.”