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Tottenham Hotspur had the opportunity to make a statement by defeating another Premier League giant that has been playing considerably below its standards in Liverpool, the defending champions who sealed their title in 2024/25 by embarrassing Spurs.

Instead of taking advantage of a reeling Liverpool and bouncing back from their own embarrassing 3-0 defeat to lowly Nottingham Forest last weekend, Tottenham could not help but rack up another "L" in the column, falling 2-1 to the Reds in a game in which they doomed themselves.

Spurs were red carded twice and genuinely were mediocre until the final 20 minutes, when their frenzy was too little, too late to salvage the game. The red cards may have been harsh, but any self respecting Spurs supporter will not wallow in the depravity of making soft excuses for what has truly been a bad football team in 2025/26.

Thomas Frank is not the scapegoat this time

That said, in most weeks, Thomas Frank is the main scapegoat for Spurs fans, but, this week, the players themselves have to bear the brunt of the criticism. Frank can't help the team if they get themselves down to nine men, and, if anything, he actually did help the team by making the right adjustments to get them in a respectable range in the final minutes.

But he was ultimately undone by the worst performance of the season from his best player, superstar center back and team captain Cristian Romero. The Argentine World Cup hero was a zero on Saturday afternoon against the Reds, producing several basic defensive errors mentally and positionally while genuinely looking erratic and inaccurate with his passing.

It was a performance in complete juxtaposition to what Romero usually does for Spurs, and the rotten cherry on top of the craptastic sundae was his red card. Again, it can be fairly argued that the referee was being very soft by giving a second yellow for arguing to a captain for wanting to talk about a call, but Romero has to be criticized for rashly putting himself in the jeopardizing position of picking up a second yellow in a tight game with his team already without Xavi Simons, knowing who that ref is, too.

But it's the football stuff purely that Tottenham fans are critical of Romero for. He was out of sorts in his marking against the Liverpool strikers. He looked a step too slow mentally all game long, could not read the game correctly, barely intervened defensively, and was very poor in terms of his progression on the ball. His performance makes it hard to evaluate Frank fairly, because he played a big role in screwing his team over.

Tottenham Hotspur fans want to see the club make positive moves in the January transfer window, as many still have designs on Bournemouth star Antoine Semenyo or even Manchester City wingers Omar Marmoush and Savinho as alternatives if Spurs are no longer competitive for the top attacking prize in the Premier League transfer market.

There is a clear need for more help on the front lines to assist Mohammed Kudus in creation and Randal Kolo Muani in scoring goals. But as Spurs fans ruminate over the possible available upgrades to their ailing attack, they must prepare for a potentially devastating departure.

Fiorentina have been an even more disappointing powerhouse in European football than the 2025/26 iteration of Tottenham, as they cannot buy themselves a win in Serie A and sit dead last in Serie A one year after being one of the league's darling sides.

Tottenham are in big trouble now

And Fabio Paratici has been tabbed as the successor to help turn around this titanic sized downfall. According to the latest information on his YouTube channel, top Italian transfer insider Fabrizio Romano reports that the Tottenham Hotspur executive is indeed "open to joining" the Viola as a long term sporting director, with the club reportedly offering him a five year contract to call the shots in Firenze.

Per Romano, talks are "ongoing" and while "formal steps" need to be completed before Paratici exits London for Florence, there are indeed "chances" for the hyped up executive to make the switch back to a Serie A giant in 2026. Paratici is said to be "keen" on going back to Calcio, too.

It looks like Tottenham are going to have to resign themselves to losing Paratici this winter, because all signs are pointing towards Paratici wanting the challenge of turning Fiorentina around and the responsibility of being THE guy in Florence, as opposed to one of the decision makers at Tottenham.

Losing a mind like Paratici in the building would be a massive blow for Spurs, akin to losing a key player. Because he has been a key player in their process, signing much of the star players for Spurs and enacting a positive vision. The decisions made without Paratici were largely flops.

Paratici deserves a great gig like the Fiorentina job, but losing him to the Viola would be another ego blow to a Tottenham side that has taken more steps backward in the last few months than steps forward, too.

Weeks away from the opening of the January transfer window, Tottenham Hotspur supporters should honestly be hearing optimistic words from a Spurs front office that sold them dreams of superstar transfer targets, major investment, and competition for the biggest trophies in the aftermath of firing Daniel Levy.

But as the days go by, Tottenham fans have to feel that sinking feeling that they are being sold a false bill of goods again. The only top target the have been concretely linked to going into January, Antoine Semenyo, now appears to be pretty much off the table and much more close to the likes of Manchester United and Manchester City than he is to upgrading Spurs dire left wing situation.

The Semenyo transfer blows are the least of Spurs concerns now, though, because it looks like Tottenham are on the precipice of sealing themselves as one of the big losers of the January transfer market before business even officially opens.

Tottenham are about to suffer a brutal loss

That's because Relevo transfer insider Matteo Moretto is reporting that Serie A giants Fiorentina have been pushing hard to hire away Tottenham Hotspur executive Fabio Paratici, even though the former Juventus man had only just rejoined Spurs after serving a suspension.

Fiorentina have been the biggest disappointment, by far, in European football. If you think Spurs are doing poorly, which they are, the Viola are ten times worse. They are literally the worst team in Serie A and cannot buy a win to save their lives, going from one of Europe's big breakout stories in 2024/25 to an utter joke in 2025/26.

Per Moretto, Paratici and Fiorentina are now actually in "advanced" negotiations, and Fiorentina are pushing hard for Paratici to accept a whopping five year deal to become the new boss of the club and right this sinking ship. There are "constant contacts", per Moretto, and Fabrizio Romano's good friend also warns Tottenham fans that a "breakthrough" in the talks could happen soon.

If Tottenham lose Paratici, they are in huge trouble. He is the one guy Spurs fans can trust to make the right personnel decisions when it comes to the big transfers, because he is the only guy with a track record consistently over the years of spending big money wisely and finding stars. When he was gone, Tottenham made some terrible moves, and without him, Spurs would cede a very wise eye for talent - and not just in Italian football either.

Tottenham Hotspur are in need of one more major attacking upgrade to boost their squad in the January transfer window, and while there are a few options available for Thomas Frank and Co. to try and pursue, there is no question that the most popular among them is Antoine Semenyo.

The Bournemouth star winger was already on Spurs radar this past summer transfer window, but Spurs were lukewarm about signing him for upwards of 70 milllon pounds. But after taking yet another big leap forward in 2025/26 and adding more goals to his resume now as a left winger, Semenyo is an even more enticing transfer target for Tottenham with a release clause of 65 million pounds set to kick in for the beginning of the month of January.

Tottenham have been consistently named as one of the teams most interested in Semenyo over the last several weeks, but so have other Big Six Premier League rivals in Manchester City, Liverpool, and Manchester United. Spurs biggest rivals, Arsenal, were also mentioned a while back, but Semenyo's favorite childhood club have been lukewarm in their pursuit more recently, which initially gave Spurs high hopes that they could make a successful swoop.

Tottenham are nowhere near now

Now, though, it looks like Tottenham are nowhere near the picture despite seemingly being one of the favorites at some point. Per another crushing report, this time from Mark Doulgas and Peter Hall for iPaperSport, Tottenham Hotspur are not one of the favorites to sign Antoine Semenyo. In fact, the news cycle has now shockingly flipped from Liverpool being favored to Manchester City to now, per Douglas and Hall, Manchester United being placed No. 1 to sign the Bournemouth star.

Since Semenyo has a flat release clause that is the same for any team that wants to sign him in January, the entire transfer battle is going to come down to wages paid and the project presented to the player. Tottenham would seem to have an advantage in terms of the role Semenyo would have, as he would be an essential starter on the left wing. Meanwhile, Manchester United, Manchester City, and Liverpool already made major summer signings who can play on that side of the formation or would otherwise crowd Semenyo out.

Tottenham Hotspur supporters are getting frustrated with their club promising better and never ever delivering. This past summer transfer window, Spurs brought in a new manager in Thomas Frank after Ange Postecoglou finished a historically poor 17th in the Premier League despite winning the Europa League. They signed marquee players like Randal Kolo Muani, Mohammed Kudus, and Xavi Simons. And then they fired Daniel Levy before promising more investment and bigger and better things in the future.

Well, what Tottenham have done in this 2025/26 Premier League season is lose game after game, including getting completely embarrassed by top rivals Arsenal and Chelsea in head to head competition. Their latest game? A 3-0 blowout loss to a Sean Dyche coached Nottingham Forest, of all teams to get blown out by.

Tottenham are expecting real changes and real attacking upgrades in the coming January transfer window, but it looks like even one marquee attacking signing is too much to ask from Tottenham at this stage.

Tottenham are out of it

In his latest transfer news update on his YouTube channel, Fabrizio Romano has reported that Tottenham Hotspur are no longer advancing for Bournemouth superstar left winger Antoine Semenyo in the latest cruel transfer blow for Spurs supporters to absorb.

This sudden transfer report from Fabrizio about Spurs being all but totally out of the race for Semenyo comes in stark juxtaposition to both his previous reporting and everything else everyone else was reporting about Semenyo and Spurs. Tottenham were seemingly one of the candidates to sign the Ghanaian star with as good of a chance as anyone - Manchester City, Liverpool, and Manchester United being the other main candidates - to sign Semenyo.

Now, it looks like Spurs have either been roundly rejected by Semenyo and have thus pulled out of the transfer race, or they are moving on to other options with no interest in competing in a wage bill bidding war with the elite of the elite in the Premier League - or they have simply resigned themselves to losing to another transfer target.

It is a tale as old as time itself. Spurs show interest in an elite transfer target all the big boys will want, and then once things get serious and the big boys start throwing around big boy numbers, the Tottenham brass turns into little puppies and run away with their tail between their legs. Same old Tottenham, no matter what the goons in the front office tell the fans, and the same fake fans posing for social media likes will lap it up and tell you these players were never good anyway while watching Spurs finish outside the top four yet again.

As Tottenham Hotspur prepare to face defending Premier League champions Liverpool, there is a sense that this is the chance for Spurs to finally make a real statement by taking advantage of a Reds side that is undeniably talented but also reeling with even more controversies than they are after the latest Arne Slot, Mohamed Salah, and Jamie Carragher situation.

Spurs do not have their ducks in a row themselves, of course, and they are coming off a truly embarrassing performance against Nottingham Forest, losing 3-0 amidst another combination of a Thomas Frank and a Guglielmo Vicario disaster class against one of the least talented teams in the Premier League.

Tottenham do not have as many injury excuses, though, as most of the team has a clean bill of health. James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski are, of course, out with long term injuries, but all the other guys with nagging issues will be out there, such as Randal Kolo Muani at striker.

Where is Dominic Solanke?

But the other striker, Dominic Solanke, is the one guy with nagging issues that should not be long term who is still yet to be available. Solanke has appeared in just three games this season, all off the bench, and he has done absolutely zero to help Tottenham. Worse yet, the bloated 65 million pound signing from Bournemouth has no real time table for a return.

At the pre game press conference before Tottenham Hotspur face Liverpool in the Premier League, Spurs manager Thomas Frank delivered another fake optimistic bit of injury news on Dominic Solanke. Frank told reporters, via Chris Cowlin, Everyone is doing fine. Last game, it's the same players available. No one new is available in the squad. He (Solanke) is progressing forward..."

"Progressing forward". It is laughable at this point. Progressing where? Progressing to what? Progressing in comparison to how he has been? Solanke is totally missing in action at this point, and the surgery and aggravated foot injury are clouding such a shadow around the player that Spurs supporters might as well count Solanke out for the season.

He is becoming an expensive enigma and an albatross on the club. Tottenham can not count on him, nor can they plan for him. All Spurs fans have are vague, non updates on Solanke that ring out a sense of pseudo positivity, because while Frank is seemingly giving a positive update that Solanke is doing well, without any tangible signs of progress or a concrete time line, they are just empty, almost mocking words from the coach.

Tottenham Hotspur supporters have a lot to be frustrated about, and no single individual has been drawing more criticism from the fan base than manager Thomas Frank. The negative results continue to pour on Spurs, and although wins over lowly Brentford and Slavia Praha served as a brief reprieve, Spurs were really hammered badly last weekend in the Premier League by Ange Postecoglou's most recent club, Nottingham Forest.

In that game, Frank displayed all of his worst tendencies yet again with no lessons learned. And in goal, the other man that Spurs fans are quite upset about, goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, delivered a disaster class of his own with two more inexcusable errors to essentially doom Tottenham to another devastating defeat.

As you would expect, Frank and Vicario have been standing arm in arm, with the Danish manager incessantly defending Vicario's woeful errors, even if it means throwing a younger player completely under the bus.

Guglielmo Vicario is a mistake machine now

Ahead of a vital fixture in the Premier League against defending champions Liverpool, Thomas Frank doubled down on his bizarre defense of Guglielmo Vicario in the pre game press conference, once again blaming Archie Gray for one of the mistakes while completely absolving the veteran Italian shot stopper of the other.

Frank said of Vicario, via The Spurs Express, “It's two completely different situations, one is a missed clearance which happens, the other one is more on Archie, he knows it's one-touch bounce. It's a situation we've seen a thousand times in England and across Europe.”

At this point, Frank's lack of accountability for certain veteran players is appalling. It seems like no matter how many errors Vicario, Richarlison, and Rodrigo Bentancur make that cost Tottenham points in the table, they will always be defended vociferously by Frank and played without any thought to the continued dropped points in the table.

Vicario has his positives and is a great pure shot stopper, and he honestly is not even one of the top five biggest problems at Tottenham right now. But he is a problem in comparison to the standards Spurs want to set going forward, as his mistakes are untenable and not at all replicated by the goalkeepers at the other top clubs like Liverpool, Arsenal, and Manchester City - the very same clubs Johan Lange and Co. tell the fans that Spurs want to start competing with. As the excuses rain down on the fans, the supporters have to wonder if Frank and the players are half as serious about winning as they are.

Tottenham Hotspur are expected to be one of the big buyers of attacking talent in European football this coming January 2026 transfer window, because they have a serious dearth of goals born out of the loss of club legends Son Heung-min and Harry Kane in the last few summer transfer windows. Their striker situation is not settled by any means, and their left wing remains vacuous in terms of consistent attacking output under new manager Thomas Frank.

As Tottenham begin to fall away from Antoine Semenyo - the most coveted left wing transfer target available on the winter market - they must ponder the alternatives. And they must also consider the players who will leave the attack in order to clear out squad space for an incoming transfer who can make a bigger impact.

The main candidate to leave Tottenham this winter is Brennan Johnson, who has been rendered fully obsolete on the right wing by the much more hard working, well rounded, and productive new signing Mohammed Kudus.

Tottenham are open for business

According to a report from Bobby Manzi of Give Me Sport and the South East London News Shopper, Tottenham Hotspur are indeed shopping Johnson actively this winter transfer window, and local rivals Crystal Palace are indeed among the clubs gunning for the Welsh international. Per the top Crystal Palace beat reporter, Tottenham are open for bids, and a price of 35 million pounds is expected to be the offer that it takes to get Spurs to trigger a sale.

Crystal Palace have been the only team concretely linked to Johnson thus far, and they seem very interested in the young forward, who was the hero of the Europa League Final in Bilbao against Manchester United. But aside from those sorts of opportunistic goals, Johnson is not offering much at all to Spurs.

Tottenham paid a hefty 47.5 million pounds to sign Brennan Johnson from Nottingham Forest a couple of years ago, and Thomas Frank over at Brentford was among the candidates Spurs outpaid in order to sign the young forward. There was thus an expectation that Frank would take a liking to Johnson and try to get the most out of him, but the funny thing is that Johnson has been even worse under Frank, discarded almost entirely and played way away from goal - and even on the left wing.

With Dejan Kulusevski set to come back within months, Johnson will only fall further down the pecking order. Palace could use a player lke Johnson with his eye for goal, and the Eagles have less pressure around them than Spurs. Johnson could be a good fit at significantly less than what Spurs paid to Forest for him.

For the better part of the past month, all the rage on the Tottenham Hotspur transfer rumor mill has been news regarding star left winger Antoine Semenyo, who swapped flanks and burst out as an even bigger breakout star in the 2025/26 Premier League season for sleepers Bournemouth - the same club Spurs plucked record striker signing Dominic Solanke from in the preceding summer transfer window.

Semenyo and Spurs are no strangers to each other as far as transfer links go, because Tottenham were among the clubs interested in the Cherries star forward this past summer window, alongside the likes of powerhouses including Manchester United. And these same clubs are, of course, still interested in Semenyo now that the Ghanaian international is putting up even bigger numbers for Bournemouth in 2025/26.

Tottenham were listed among the favorites for several weeks, but it looks like their grip on the transfer battle has slowly faded into the background. According to the latest information from journalist Jamie Jackson of The Guardian, Tottenham Hotspur are not even among the top choices for Antoine Semenyo at this stage. Semenyo is said to favor Liverpool the most, which does conflict with other reports that Manchester City are now the favorites. But the Citizens are not far behind, ranking second behind the Reds in the chase. And then Manchester United slot in at third in the hierarchy to sign Semenyo for 65 million pounds this winter.

Tottenham are left in the dust

That leaves Tottenham nowhere to be found. Spurs were once among the pack interested in Semenyo and seemed to stand as good of a chance as anyone, including Liverpool and Manchester City, to sign the young standout.

And that was likely because of the combination of the countryman connection with new star right winger Mohammed Kudus, as well as the clear and obvious path to playing time on the left wing at the N17 whereas Semenyo would have more competition at the other top Premier League clubs.

But the harsh reality is starting to set in that Spurs are not real competitors for Semenyo because they just are not good enough. As ever, Spurs do not have quite the same clout as a Liverpool or a Manchester United, and they are certainly not playing as well as Man City - not this season or in the last several. Spurs are closer to the bottom half of the table than the top half, and their lack of sporting success over the years is a big reason why they can't win these sorts of targets.

Tottenham Hotspur are going to be one of the more active teams in the winter transfer market, because they have been playing pretty poorly so far in the 2025/26 Premier League season under Thomas Frank and are at serious risk of not even qualifying for European football at all next year. They are currently in the Champions League, but that is only by virtue of winning the Europa League; they finished 17th in the English top flight last season under Ange Postecoglou.

And yet instead of taking steps forward, it feels like Spurs are treading water or even actually moving backwards under Frank in 2025. The summer signings of Randal Kolo Muani, Mohammed Kudus, and Xavi Simons have all been important to varying degrees, and yet the Spurs attack still feels wholly incompetent and quite disjointed under the new manager.

Tottenham need to sign a player who can bring more goals to the table, and they are zeroing in on the left wing position as their biggest need. And so far in December, the main transfer target linked to Spurs has been Bournemouth breakout superstar Antoine Semenyo, who was already a target for the Lilywhites in the summer market.

Tottenham are fading fast

But Spurs are fading fast in the battle for Semenyo. According to the latest information from talkSPORT transfer reporter Alex Crook, while the battle for Antoine Semenyo is heating up, Tottenham Hotspur are the ones cooling down. Manchester City have been holding direct talks with the Ghanaian winger, while Manchester United and Liverpool are "very keen". Meanwhile, Tottenham are suddenly reportedly seen as the "outsiders" in the transfer race, which was not the case weeks ago when they were mentioned as favorites alongside the likes of Man City and Liverpool.

It appears the transfer race has been turned on its head, per the rumor mill. Man City are gunning harder and harder after Semenyo as they look to flip the script on Arsenal in the Premier League title race, while the Gunners themselves appear to be nowhere near the Semenyo chase. And despite their big summer signings in the attack, Man United appear to be highly interested in Semenyo, moreso than the surprisingly struggling defending Premier League champions Liverpool.

And now Tottenham are falling behind the rest, perhaps already rejected by Semenyo or simply not as serious in the player anyway - maybe even sending the inevtability of losing out on another highly sought after Premier League transfer target.