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Even though Brennan Johnson scored the decisive goal to gift Tottenham Hotspur the Europa League title over Manchester United last season, Spurs supporters were largely glad to see the back of Johnson this winter transfer window and even happier to see Crystal Palace spend a record fee to sign him. But now, they are afraid to face him on Thursday night when these two London rivals go to battle in a key fixture.

Even though Johnson finally notched his first goal contribution of the season in a Palace shirt with an assist for Maxence Lacroix during a 2-1 loss to Manchester United this past Premier League weekend, it has been a disastrous start to life with the Eagles for the Welsh international.

As most Tottenham fans could have predicted, Johnson has been a massive transfer bust. Not only is the golden goal scoring touch gone, but Johnson is just as poor as he was at Tottenham as a winger. He cannot create, take players on, defend, progress the ball, or do anything that a winger should.

Brennan Johnson is destined to shred Tottenham

But given how cursed Tottenham have been this season, Spurs fans are deathly scared of the supposed inevitability of Johnson suddenly waking up to cook them. Just as Eberechi Eze has done nothing this season save for scoring five of his six Premier League goals against former suitors Tottenham Hotspur, Spurs fans are worried Johnson will save his best performance to help Palace exact revenge on Spurs for their 1-0 win on Dec. 28 - literally their last win in the Premier League.

It flies in the face of logic to be convinced that Johnson will score and dominate Spurs, but when watching just how putrid Spurs were against two other London rivals in Arsenal and Fulham, it really isn't an outlandish conclusion. And it would only be fitting for an incredibly unlucky Tottenham side that has suffered more injury blows than anyone else.

There is very little in the form of positive news emanating from the N17, and Tottenham Hotspur supporters now have to be worried about the very real possibility of Archie Gray leaving the club this summer transfer window as more vultures circle the carcass of the Premier League Big Six side.

According to a report from Fraser Fletcher of TEAM Talk, Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich are indeed interested in poaching Gray from Tottenham this summer, and joining them is a club even more renowned for plucking great young talents from England before they become household names, Borussia Dortmund. With Real Madrid, the mightiest of them all and in need of a new No. 6, also linked, Spurs have to be wary of losing one of England's best midfield prospects before he truly blossoms into a star.

Per Fletcher, both Bayern and Dortmund are believers in Gray's potential, and because Spurs are 17th in the table and much closer to the drop than they were last season in the same position with just four points separating them from West Ham United, Gray is now a realistic target for these two German clubs.

Bayern Munich, Dortmund want to steal Archie Gray

Bayern and Dortmund surely won't be the only teams involved in the Gray sweepstakes, especially if Tottenham are relegated. And in all reality, Spurs have not exactly helped their case with regards to staying afloat or appeasing themselves to Gray by the way they have treated the English standout, most recently playing him as a left back and right winger in a dreadful loss to Fulham.

Through the reigns of Ange Postecoglou, Thomas Frank, and Igor Tudor, everyone has mistreated Gray, who had to work his way from the bottom to earn starts over an already inferior Rodrigo Bentancur this season.

Tottenham are at serious risk of losing several young stars, but the most frustrating losses would be the likes of Mathys Tel and Gray. These are young players who are already good enough to be starters for Tottenham and who are giving their all for the club despite multiple snubs and disrespect, as well as all the futility of the team itself.

It is never a good sign when Dortmund is eyeing one of your players, because that means both they are very good and that you are not making the most out of them. Gray's transfer situation should deeply concern the Tottenham front office at this point.

When looking through the talent levels in the Tottenham Hotspur squad, it is almost difficult to believe that they are 17th in the Premier League and getting shellacked by squads like West Ham United and Fulham, but when you actually watch the body language of the players and how many of them perform, it is obvious that this team has a rotten collection of entitled egos who are mailing it in.

It is profoundly disappointing to see what has become of Tottenham, and it is almost baffling how several highly talented, likable players have become complacent and overrated, failing to bank on the talent they have at their disposal.

Attacking midfielder Xavi Simons and center back Micky van de Ven are beginning to fall into that category, and as the losses continue to pile up, it is quite clear that these two young stars are not playing up to their reputations, even as they act as though they are above it all.

Xavi Simons, Micky van de Ven turn their backs on Tottenham

As Spurs influencer Ben Bowman pointed out after the entirely unacceptable 2-1 loss to Fulham at the Premier League weekend, Van de Ven and Simons could be observed blatantly ignoring the traveling supporters, who were subjected to another disasterclass from the team - and from these two in particular. Tottenham's coaches had to essentially force Van de Ven to acknowledge the supporters - the same supporters he has been seen screaming at after horrible losses in the past. The same happened with Simons, who ignored the fans clapping him after he was taken off at the hour mark for a beyond pathetic, putrid performance.

It is baffling to see two young players behave this entitled. Spurs were embarrassed by a squad with players who are less known and less wealthy than these two, and even though the fans showed them the support they were complaining that the fans had failed to, these two turned their backs on the supporters.

Simons is a hyped 60 million pound signing from the Bundesliga, but aside from a few small trophies at clubs that dominate their leagues, he has accomplished very little in this sport. He is all potential with no bite, and he has to realize that he needs to do a lot more to justify his price tag and past praise. Van de Ven has at least won a Europa League title and will be a more than 60 million pound transfer in the future, but when you watch how horrible he is without Cristian Romero holding his hand, you really have to do wonder if he is buying his own hype a little too much as a future Real Madrid or Barcelona player.

Tottenham Hotspur are the most disappointing team in European football, though considering they finished 17th in the Premier League last season, perhaps disappointment is not the right way to frame Spurs futility; they are finally now as dreadful as they deserve to be.

There are bright spots in the squad, though. One of them, lately, has been Dominic Solanke. Though he's been hampered again by a throat issue, Solanke was a revelation upon his return from a nasty foot injury, immediately making an impact in a big win over Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League.

But even as Solanke has asserted himself as the clear No. 9 for Spurs, a look at his numbers exemplifies the root of the problem at Tottenham. Sure, the attacking talent itself is far from adequate for a club of Big Six status, but the delivery of chances to the strikers and forwards is the real travesty here.

Tottenham cannot create sufficient chances

Look at Solanke's numbers. Before he joined Spurs, he was able to average 3.48 and 2.95 shots per 90 minutes in his final two healthy seasons with mid table club Bournemouth. Even in his first season at Tottenham under Ange Postecoglou, Solanke's shots per 90 average fell to 2.45.

But now under Thomas Frank (and Igor Tudor) rule, Solanke is averaging career lows with 1.70 shots and 0.68 shots per target per 90. Whereas his shots per target average in his first season with Spurs was about the same as his final season with the Cherries, the chances - and the quality of chances - available to Solanke have fallen off a cliff in 2025/26.

That speaks volumes to how difficult it is for a striker to succeed at Tottenham with how weak the team is tactically. They are a disaster, and while Solanke and Richarlison are still working hard to sniff out those few chances, even Randal Kolo Muani has given up as a hired gun from PSG.

Bayern Munich superstar striker Harry Kane is having the season of his life with 30 goals and even world class playmaking and defending, and he is about to be rewarded with a new contract that will permanently end the Tottenham Hotspur transfer speculation.

There are several things Tottenham fans are dreaming of, and most of them are outlandish given the club is only four points above the relegation zone. But the most selfish of those pipe dreams is a reunion with Kane, one of the two most talented players in the history of the club and one of the best all-around strikers to ever play this game - a point he has finally proven to the masses at one of Europe's truly elite clubs in Bayern.

As Kane chases Champions League and Ballon d'Or glory for the first time in his career, he has been the subject of transfer rumors owing to talk of special release clauses and a desire to return to the Premier League.

Harry Kane will soon sign a new Bayern Munich contract

Well, according to a new report from ace transfer reporter Fabrizio Romano, Bayern Munich are currently "insisting" on hammering out a new contract for Harry Kane in light of a season in which he has a real shot at breaking Robert Lewandowski's goals record in a single Bundesliga season while playing better all around football than either Lewandowski or Gerd Muller did in a Bayern shirt. Per Fab, Bayern would like Kane to stay as a centerpiece of the project.

The 32 year old marksman is currently under contract through the 2026/27 season, meaning if Bayern do not sign him to an extension, he would technically be free to leave on a pre agreed deal in the coming winter 2027 transfer window to Tottenham Hotspur or any other club.

Obviously, that isn't happening, and Bayern want to formalize that by signing him to a new deal. Kane is the heart of the best attacking quartet in world football with Luis Diaz, Michael Olise, and Jamal Musiala surrounding him - and then Lennart Karl and Serge Gnabry as two further options.

Tottenham have to figure out their own future without Kane, which begins with avoiding relegation and ends with finding players besides Mohammed Kudus who are capable of shining in the here and now as top Premier League players. The Kane ship probably already sailed, but, soon, it will be official from a Tottenham perspective.

Tottenham Hotspur spent a whopping 40 million euros on Conor Gallagher in the winter transfer window after Rodrigo Bentancur's injury, and even at the time, any sensible Spurs fan could cut through the media mismash about leadership, effort, and experience and see how the deal did not make much sense.

Because the first major problem with Gallagher was apparent from the beginning. Gallagher didn't bring to the table anything Spurs didn't already have - or have better. Though a serious injury to top box to box midfielder Lucas Bergvall should have, in theory, made Gallagher of value, the reality is that Spurs No. 1 need in midfield was playmaking and passing ball progression in the here and now to help star of the future Archie Gray out.

Nobody will mistake Gallagher for a technical playmaker, and that is actually precisely why Tottenham's rivals Chelsea got rid of him in the first place. Gallagher, predictably, has offered nothing of value to the Tottenham attack, nor has he offered anything unique. And as the last match against Fulham once again affirmed, Pape Matar Sarr is simply a better version of what Gallagher purports to bring.

Conor Gallagher does not offer anything new

And therein lies the second issue, which, subtly, some astute Tottenham fans already saw coming at the time of the deal. It is sincerely difficult to name a single attribute that Gallagher actually does bring to the table for Spurs.

So much was yammered about Gallagher's leadership, effort, and experience, and those three things are the harbinger of poor play and transfer overpay. If all the English punditry can wax poetic about a player are these three generic, nontangible traits that do not translate to actual performance, then you had better believe that they are propping up a good old favorite of theirs.

Gallagher is not winning the ball at a high rate. He is not progressing the ball at all. The supposed end product is nowhere near there. And there is obviously no creativity. The 26 year old Premier League veteran is getting overrun defensively, and while he is doing a nice job of drawing fouls and is averaging more key passes (one full key pass per game) than expected, he has been a big part of some terrible losses and isn't producing enough compared to the share of the ball he commands.

Much has been made of Cristian Romero's supposed indiscpline and lack of leadership as the new captain of Tottenham Hotspur, succeeding Son Heung-min, and while 99 percent of that is complete mainstream media drivel by an increasingly annoying Premier League punditry base, Romero hasn't exactly assuaged the 1 percent with some silly suspensions this season. But in his absence, fellow star center back Micky van de Ven has done little to convince about his own leadership merits, thus increasing Romero's value.

In a recent column for The Times, Tony Cascarino wrote a thought provoking piece about Van de Ven, calling him out for struggling at a time when Tottenham are fighting relegation and need their other fiery central defender to step up. Cascarino took Van de Ven's struggles to their logical conclusion and surmised that VDV's inability to be a leader won't bode well for his desire to pursue a dream move to an even bigger club.

Everything penned in that piece is accurate. Van de Ven is a supremely gifted footballer and one of the fastest center backs on this planet, capable of scoring goals that most defenders could only dream of, including his Puskas worthy solo run at the beginning of the season.

Micky van de Ven is not a leader yet

But Van de Ven has also been as disastrous as any Tottenham player in the biggest games this season, with his work in the absence of Romero only confirmed that he remains a step below the Argentinian World Cup and Copa America hero - the reigning Europa League MVP.

Van de Ven wants to move to Real Madrid. The tea leaves are too obvious not to read, and Van de Ven isn't exactly going out of his way to deny the transfer rumors that float through the English papers. But when you watch how he treats the fans or recall how he openly snubbed Thomas Frank and then you see the ego problems in Madrid that persist, it's hard to think of Van de Ven as the kind of stable center back the elite clubs will want.

The Dutchman needs to mature, and while nobody wants to admit that their star player isn't stepping it up and even fewer want to criticize a young player in this way, Van de Ven has soured Tottenham fans. His disrespect towards the Spurs faithful in the stadium is emblematic of a cultural problem within the players in the squad, such as goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, and as the losses pile up, more questions will be asked of these so-called leaders.

Now the good news for Spurs is that Van de Ven's immaturity will likely keep him at the club for longer. Real Madrid, Liverpool, Barcelona, and all the others will have other, better options like Nico Schlotterbeck, which gives Van de Ven more time to season and stew on what it means to be a leader who takes charge.

It is still going to be a matter of months, if at all this season, that James Maddison makes his triumphant return to the Tottenham Hotspur lineup, and as the losses continue to pile up and the service for the strikers continues to sag, the former Leiceser City star is only being missed more and more.

Tottenham did spend big on a new No. 10 this past summer transfer window, but as time passes, Xavi Simons is only showing that he belongs more as an attacking No. 8 rather than a true creative 10. His average of 1.3 key passes per game would be strong for an 8 but is below par for a top Premier League team in the 10 position.

Simons has recorded multiple key passes in a game just once in his last four Premier League outings, as his performances and Spurs as a whole have slipped again lately, undoing a brief period of time in which it looked like the Dutchman was finally clicking.

Xavi Simons isn't a creative force yet

Meanwhile, Maddison was an extraordinary creator for Tottenham. Compared to Simons's four assists in the Premier League this season, Maddison had seven and nine in his first two seasons with Spurs, averaging an outstanding 2.4 key passes per game in the 2023/24 campaign back when Spurs were last good.

Now, Maddison is not far and away the better player to Simons and actually only averaged the same number of key passes per game (1.3) last season as Simons is this season. But Maddison was also dragged down on a per game basis by not actually starting every game, which artificially deflates the average.

Anyone watching Simons and Maddison can tell that the latter is more creative and refined technically with his passing in the final third. Simons will imrpove in that regard with age and experience, but if anything, this season has reminded Tottenham supporters about the learning curve in the Premier League, especially when it comes to reading and understanding the game.

Although there is no love lost among the Tottenham Hotspur faithful for former CEO Daniel Levy, who was deposed shortly after the summer 2025 transfer window, the reality is that Spurs are even worse off without him. Case in point: At least Levy had the foresight to prepare the club in case of relegation, whereas his successor couldn't even plan for Thomas Frank failing.

According to a report from the best Premier League transfer insider there is, David Ornstein, Levy had already planned for the possibility of Tottenham suffering relegation. In each of the contracts at Spurs, there is a clause stipulating a salary decrease of about 50 percent in the vast majority of cases if Spurs were to be relegated. Ornstein reports that Levy made sure to include a relegation clause of some sort in each Tottenham contract as a financial safeguard against relegation.

On the one hand, it isn't exactly reassuring that Levy predicted all along that Tottenham would be at risk of relegation. On the other hand, it is far better to be prepared than to be caught offguard, and considering Tottenham finished 17th in the Premier League last season, it was a good thing Levy came prepared. Surely, Johan Lange and Vinai Venkatesham, left to their own devices, would have just let Tottenham crumble into worse financial peril.

Daniel Levy has relegation clauses in Tottenham contracts

And although Ange Postecoglou's few truthers like to say that Tottenham only finished 17th because they did not care about the league anyway, Spurs were woeful under Big Ange in the league and ranked 17th because they were truly that terrible. As anyone can plainly see this season, that fact has been proven.

Tottenham still have plenty of time left to save themselves under Igor Tudor, though if their latest horrendous losses to local rivals Arsenal and Fulham are anything to go off of, Spurs can count their blessings that they are still four points above West Ham United in the relegation battle.

Spurs are in a dark period of their history right now, even after winning the Europa League last season, and things could get grim. Levy was an albatross on the club and a big reason why Tottenham are in the position they are in today - it's not all on Vinai and Lange, after all, the rot has seeped for years - but, again, at least he wasn't foolish enough to walk into a season unprepared with no contingency plan for the worst case.

With Djed Spence a late scratch from the match between Tottenham Hotspur and Fulham on Sunday, that was the perfect opportunity for Igor Tudor to right an obvious wrong from the 4-1 blowout loss to Arsenal and start young left back Souza.

Instead, the Spurs interim manager overthought things and pulled an Ange Postecoglou, though instead of starting young Archie Gray out of position at center back, Tudor chose to make Gray the starting left back against Fulham with predictably negative results.

Gray ended the night with an assist after Souza finally did come on in the second half to deliver another pretty tidy left back performance for Tottenham, and his English prospect counterpart thus improved in a role more suited to his style.

Souza needs to be in the starting lineup

But Souza is the real point of conversation here, and it is worth remembering that the Palmeiras prospect was actually the first signing of the winter transfer window. He was overshadowed by first the price tag of Conor Gallagher and now the poor performances of the big name transfer signing flopping - the only experienced addition of the window, in the end.

However, Souza is already showing that he can be a big success at Tottenham. When the 19 year old came off the bench against Fulham, he delivered a very positive performance alongside Mathys Tel and Richarlison, and the trio are now going to be quite important to Spurs making a charge to ensure safety by the end of the season.

Tottenham have to start Souza at left back when the time calls for it, and there is a real argument to be made that even when Djed Spence, who himself is not a natural left back, is available, Souza should still be the call. Destiny Udogie is the best man at left back, obviously, but his latest injury is a reminder of why Souza was signed in the first place; the Italian star cannot be counted on every week for health reasons.