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Tottenham Hotspur are bracing themselves for an improved club-record bid from Nottingham Forest for Lucas Bergvall, according to reports.

Spurs head coach Roberto De Zerbi faces a fight to hang onto the 20-year-old after splashing out £185 million on his new central midfield pairing of Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes. The duo's arrival has pushed Bergvall further down the pecking order and the Swede looks set to depart this summer.

Football.london understands Bergvall asked to leave the club as he wants a new challenge after watching his game time decline last season. The youngster signed a new contract in April 2025, which boosts Spurs' position at the negotiating table.

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The Telegraph report that Forest are now preparing a second bid worth £45m for Bergvall. The outlet reports Forest lodged an opening offer of around £38m last week, which was turned swiftly rebuffed by the north London club.

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Spurs' valuation is said to be closer to £50m, which would represent a huge profit on the initial £11m invested to bring Bergvall to the Premier League two years ago. However, they could be willing to let the midfielder leave for the right price.

Meeting that figure would represent a club-record fee for Forest, who set the bar when they captured Omari Hutchinson from Ipswich Town for £37.5m in 2025.

Forest have significant funds to spend to bolster Oliver Glasner's squad after selling Elliot Anderson to Manchester City for £116m, a British transfer record. They are looking to recruit a promising midfielder to fill the void left by Anderson and Bergvall is their top target.

And with the Anderson money set to be reinvested into the squad, Glasner may be able to get his man. He is looking to sign four new players this summer, with a centre-back also on his radar.

Bergvall joined Spurs from Djurgardens in 2024 after bursting onto the Swedish Allsvenskan scene at the age of 16. He has gone on to make 78 appearances for Spurs, scoring two goals and providing nine assists, but struggled to lock down a regular place in the team under Ange Postecoglou and Thomas Frank.

De Zerbi has made a concerted effort to convince Bergvall to remain at the club following his return from international duty with Sweden at the World Cup. But with no guarantee of first-team football, he looks set to head for the exit - providing a club is willing to meet Spurs' valuation.

In addition to his new signings, De Zerbi has Pape Matar Sarr, Conor Gallagher and Archie Gray able to fill into central midfield. That means Bergvall will face rife competition for a place in the first team, with Spurs not in Europe next season after finishing 17th.

If Spurs do end up extracting their desired fee for the highly-rated Swede, it could enable De Zerbi to land his top target. The Italian boss is keen on signing Junior Kroupi from Bournemouth this summer, but the Cherries are demanding around £100m to sell the talented forward.

Spurs have already spent £227m on Tonali, Fernandes and centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke, while selling Luka Vuskovic to Brighton for £46m. Offloading Bergvall would once again boost their coffers and represent a significant profit on the balance sheet, potentially giving them the green light to pursue a record deal for Kroupi.

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Rodri has avoided a ban over his extraordinary outburst that followed Manchester City’s clash with Tottenham.

The Spanish midfielder made headlines last month with his comments about officials that followed the dramatic 2-2 draw away at Spurs in the Premier League, but has escaped with a fine and a warning.

Rodri said referees “have to be neutral” and that it “wasn’t fair” after Tottenham’s first goal against City was awarded despite Dominic Solanke appearing to kick through the back of Marc Guehi’s leg to score, with the incident checked and cleared by VAR.

Solanke’s superb second goal then earned struggling Spurs a surprise share of the spoils as early efforts from Rayan Cherki and Antoine Semenyo were cancelled out at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

"I know we won too much and the people don't want us to win but the referee has to be neutral and for me honestly, it's not fair,” the 2024 Ballon d’Or winner told Australian broadcaster Stan Sport.

“It's not fair because we work so hard in these situations and now to make these decisions, we have to move on.

“Of course you need to come back but at the end, when everything is finished, we are frustrated because it’s so clear, the foul.”

Rodri was charged by the Football Association (FA) with misconduct, alleging that he “acted in an improper manner during a post-match media interview by making comments that imply bias and/or question the integrity of a match official and/or match officials, contrary to FA Rule 3.1.”

He admitted the charge and has now been fined £80,000 and warned as to his future conduct following an independent regulatory commission hearing.

Rodri will therefore be available for the entirety of City’s run-in as they have nine games remaining in which to chase down Premier League leaders Arsenal’s seven-point lead in the title race, with Pep Guardiola’s side playing host to the Gunners at the Etihad Stadium next month as well as in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley on March 22.

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Tottenham Hotspur have been warned they face a "significant" financial hit even if they avoid relegation to the Championship.

The north London club is currently in a battle to stay in the top flight after a 10-match Premier League winless run saw them slide down the table.

Manager Thomas Frank was sacked last month and replaced with interim boss Igor Tudor, who conceded it was an "emergency situation."

It has also been estimated Tottenham could lose £250 million if they go down.

However, leading sports lawyer Geoff Cunningham of Clarion Solicitors has painted a bleak picture for the 2025-26 campaign regardless of their division, given Spurs are likely to miss out on Europe for only a third time in 21 seasons.

Cunningham said: “I imagine they will have certain commercial revenue that will increase based upon them being in a European competition.

“If they’re not in Europe, it’s not just lost revenue from being in the competition, but it’s also lost revenue of commercial rights they sell for being in that competition and also the ticket revenue and the hospitality revenue.

“Every time there’s a home game and they sell 60,000 tickets plus corporate hospitality, that’s a fair amount of revenue generated from every game.

“It’s going to be significant (loss) and there’s no way of really avoiding that. It’s just simple maths. If there’s less games and there’s less TV revenue from European competition, you are going to lose more money.”

Cunningham was more optimistic about how Spurs could handle relegation given they have the ninth biggest revenue in world football.

“I think the kind of reported £250million relegation cost is probably likely to be quite accurate,” Cunningham said.

“The Premier League revenue difference will probably be compared with where they’ve been used to finishing and if you also account European football, I think it would be quite likely to be £100m or more.

“There’s a number of ways they can plug the gap or part of the gap quite quickly with certain financial facilities, but I don’t think they’ll do that. I think they’re a club with pretty good financial stability and I think they will naturally cut their cloth accordingly.

“Player contracts will reduce significantly and they will manage themselves pretty well.

“They are likely to be able to survive in the Championship at a very good level and likely compete, like Burnley do, with promotion quite quickly after relegation.”

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Arsenal’s victory over Tottenham in the second north London derby of the season was significant in more ways than one.

Eberechi Eze and Viktor Gyokeres both scored twice to secure Arsenal a 4-1 win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last Sunday, repeating the scoreline from the first derby of the campaign at the Emirates.

The result has allowed the Gunners to steady the ship after a recent wobble in the Premier League title race as Mikel Arteta’s restored their five-point lead over Manchester City at the summit.

Spurs, meanwhile, remain four points above the relegation zone after failing to secure a first league win of 2026.

Besides bragging rights, implications on the title race and relegation battle, Arsenal opening up a 32 point gap over Tottenham is of huge significance to supporters on the red half of north London.

This is because the chance to celebrate ‘St Totteringham's Day’ could happen as early as Sunday.

‘St Totteringham's Day’ is the date upon which Spurs can no longer mathematically finish above the Gunners in the Premier League table.

Arsenal have finished above Tottenham in each of the last three season’s having not been able to celebrate ‘St Totteringham's Day’ for six seasons in a row from 2016-17 to 2021-22.

How Arsenal can guarantee earliest St Totteringham's Day this weekend

This weekend sees Arsenal host Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium, while Tottenham are also in London derby action away at Fulham in the 2pm kick-off at Craven Cottage.

If the Gunners win, they will be guaranteed to finish above Spurs in the Premier League for a fourth successive campaign.

Alternatively, ‘St Totteringham's Day’ will be confirmed before the Arsenal players even step onto the pitch against Chelsea if Tottenham fail to beat Fulham.

As per analysis from BlackScarfMarc on X (formerly Twitter), the earliest previous confirmation of ‘St. Totteringham’s Day’ was on March 9, in the 2007-08 campaign. This means Arsenal are on course to guarantee finishing above Tottenham in the Premier League at the earliest date ever.

In a scenario where ‘St. Totteringham’s Day’ is not confirmed on March 1, the next opportunity will be March 4/5 when Arsenal face Brighton away from home and Spurs host Crystal Palace respectively.

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