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Tottenham could sack Ange Postecoglou if they lose against Manchester United on Sunday with Simone Inzaghi being lined up, according to reports.

Spurs are having a nightmare second season under Postecoglou with Tottenham currently 14th in the Premier League table after 24 matches.

If Postecoglou was already under enough pressure because of their Premier League results, Tottenham exited both the Carabao Cup and FA Cup last week in a double whammy of pain for the Australian.

Widespread reports have indicated that, despite their terrible form, Daniel Levy and the rest of the Tottenham board are currently sticking with Postecoglou because of their injury crisis.

Postecoglou is currently without 11 of his first-team players with a number of players like Archie Gray and Djed Spence playing out of position.

Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola has been linked with the Tottenham role if the Spurs board decide to sack Postecoglou – but transfer expert Fabrizio Romano insists there has been no “concrete contacts” for the Spaniard.

Romano told GiveMeSport: “He’s being monitored by several clubs. I’m not aware of concrete contacts with Spurs now but in general, for sure top clubs are following his excellent work.”

Tottenham host 13th-placed Man Utd over the weekend and Inter Live claim that Spurs will ‘opt for a change on the fly in view of the arrival of a new coach for next season’ if the north London club lose on Sunday.

Former Spurs managing director of football, who now acts as a consultant for Tottenham, is ‘pushing for the arrival’ of Inter Milan boss Inzaghi if Postecoglou goes.

The report adds: ‘To convince Inzaghi, Tottenham could focus on a very rich contract and full powers on the market for the coach.’

Roy Keane insists Tottenham boss Postecoglou has to “suffer now” after having an easy ride at his previous clubs.

Keane said on the Stick To Football podcast: “When Ange was manager of Celtic, he’s playing Dundee and Hibs every week and they’ve got the smallest squads ever. I don’t think Ange was feeling sorry for them.

“It’s Ange’s time now … you have to suffer now Ange, like lots of others managers.

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“Celtic have the biggest budget, the best players. Do you think he had sympathy at Dundee when he was winning 8, 9 nil? I didnt see him after the game going, ‘I feel for the other manager, they’ve got a small budget’.

“He didn’t care less, and managers are getting sacked all around him.”

Keane added: “When you’re winning, you’re fresh as a daisy. When you see Ange at the moment, Ange looks like he’s not slept for a month because you’re not winning, of course.

“He’s got (Manchester) United on Sunday (Monday AEDT). I guarantee if they beat United you see him on Monday or Tuesday, he’ll have a spring in his step.

“That’s what the results do to you, they grind you down. When you’re losing, trust me, it beats you up.”

Impossible to know precisely what kind of stupid nonsense Spurs and Man United have got lined up for us this weekend, but stupid nonsense there will assuredly be. We can’t wait.

Game to watch: Tottenham v Man United

This might be the most Game to watch game of the season to date. Not because it’s going to be the best game, good Lord no. If anything, the opposite.

Why would you not watch this game, one that guarantees as this one does to end with at least one of the Big Six in an even deeper crisis of misery and despair?

You know that Simpsons bit where all the other nuclear powerplant workers are stood around waiting for Homer to do something stupid and then he knocks his fondue over?

This game is a 90-minute Barclays equivalent of that. You don’t know who will do the stupid thing or when, but what this game does bring is an absolute cast-iron guarantee of stupid things. Realistically, a lot of stupid things.

Who will win? Genuinely impossible to call. Both teams are in horrible form and playing horrible football in a deeply ineffective and inefficient way.

They are different brands of horrible ineffective football, though, so that’s also fun. Styles make fights, and this fight is two bald men scrapping over a comb but the comb has all teeth missing and clumps of matted hair. And also the bald men are bald because they shaved their own heads. Badly.

This is a game so impossibly mired in hilarity and ineptitude that you can’t even fall back on the best way to predict what might happen: what is funnier? All the outcomes in this match, and all the ways of getting there, are funny.

These two tragic clown football clubs have already served up two very funny games this season, and Spurs have, despite themselves, won both, which also perhaps tells you more about Man United in 24/25 than just about any other piece of information.

Those games ended 3-0 at Old Trafford in the league and 4-3 at Tottenham in the Carabao.

Anything less than another half-dozen goals in this latest clash between resistible force and movable object will frankly be a disappointment.

Player to watch: Kai Havertz’s Replacement

The Kai Havertz Narrative Arc of the last fortnight has fascinated us.

The criticism of him after the City game was insane, when he is clearly a better footballer than was being suggested. The response to his injury is now also insane, when he is clearly not a player so irreplaceable that his absence means Arsenal’s sky falling in.

He is important to them, though. He is a classic more-than-goals frontman, even though modern football’s reductive judgements mean goals are all his replacement will be judged on, for better or worse.

But the big question is who that replacement will be. There is no obvious senior striker available, and while sane options do exist – Ethan Nwaneri could do it, Raheem Sterling has previously done it, Leandro Trossard has false-nined for Arsenal previously – we obviously have a favourite option from those that have been touted.

And that’s Mikel Merino doing his best Marouane Fellaini impression. If that isn’t your favoured option, then we’re really not sure we can be friends.

Mikel Arteta really leaning into his Everton heritage is exactly what we all need in these troubled times.

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Team to watch: Liverpool

Been quite a week at Liverpool, hasn’t it? An embarrassing FA Cup defeat at Plymouth and a draw that felt like a defeat at Everton have combined to create the first real obstacle in what had been an absurdly serene saunter through the season up to that point.

And, if we’re being honest, Liverpool didn’t handle it brilliantly. The scenes of near total headloss from players and – more surprisingly and damagingly – manager after Everton’s late equaliser at Goodison are the sort of things to give rivals hope. Or at least they would do if Arsenal weren’t too busy wallowing in self-absorbed misery about their injuries to notice.

Neither Liverpool chucking in a below-par display nor Everton putting a huge shift in for what Virgil van Dijk duly and in accordance with the prophecy called ‘their cup final’ were huge shocks, but it was still striking just how far off it Liverpool looked having rested all their big guns at Plymouth and duly allowed the first of their spinning plates to fall.

Liverpool will need a response and fast. They have four Premier League games coming up in a hectic 11-day period and we all know the Arsenal emotional rollercoaster is never more than a game away from its latest lurching shift in direction.

It really is very possible that this title race could feel very different indeed a couple of weeks from now if Liverpool aren’t careful or can’t find one of their lost gears.

A home game against a Wolves side that has lost four of its last five Premier League games should provide an ideal setting for a return to winning ways, but is a fixture that also offers absolutely no margin for error if the whispers aren’t to grow louder.

Manager to watch: David Moyes

It remains incredible just how quickly and thoroughly a managerial change can shift the whole mood around a club, and, let’s be real, even more incredible when that manager is David Moyes.

Sure, his return to Everton was the single most Knows The Club appointment in history and we thought it would work pretty well. But not sure anyone really expected this level of transformation in both results and performance.

Having turned a West Ham team that looked incredibly exciting on paper into the most moribund of collectives on grass, Moyes has somehow found the return to Goodison so rejuvenating that he’s performed the opposite trick. It’s a good one.

Such is the shift in Everton’s vibe that this weekend’s trip to Palace, one once marked darkly with all the hallmarks of a six-pointer, now seems more like a jolly lower mid-table day out for a couple of sides who have put all their troubles behind them.

Football League game to watch: AFC Wimbledon v Salford

Or Doncaster v Grimsby, we will leave it up to you. Either way, it’s League Two for the juiciest TV morsels in the Saturday lunchtime slot this week with a pair of games featuring four teams sitting between fourth and ninth in the League Two table and separated by just seven points.

Wimbledon-Salford gets the final nod here for the simple maths of fourth and seventh being higher than fifth or ninth, but there’s also undeniably a chunk of narrative involved here with two clubs bringing interesting backstories to the table.

But Notts County’s surprise slip at Port Vale on Thursday night means either or both Wimbledon and Doncaster can now move into the top three with wins.

European game to watch: Bayer Leverkusen v Bayern Munich

A game that surely offers the final chance for the Bundesliga to have a title race this season, and thus also a game that could to all intents see Harry Kane finally end The Curse.

Bayern head to Leverkusen with an eight-point and 13 games to play. Even maintaining that advantage will surely be enough for a side that has only dropped nine points in the first 21 games.

Leverkusen’s drop-off from last year’s unbeaten title-winning effort has not been as extreme as it sometimes feels; they have still only lost one league game this time around. But draws have hurt them, including last weekend’s goalless effort at Wolfsburg.

Another draw is surely no good at all this weekend if they are to prevent the resumption of normal service for Bayern and genuine novelty for Kane.

Arsenal will hold talks “behind the scenes” as they weigh up whether to make a move for former Tottenham striker Harry Kane, according to a former Spurs scout.

The England international scored 280 goals in 435 appearances for Spurs, including 213 in the Premier League, and he has continued his amazing scoring rate in Germany with Bayern Munich.

Kane has scored 73 goals in 74 matches in all competitions for the Bavarians with 57 of those coming in 51 Bundesliga appearances.

Despite a record-breaking first season in the Bundesliga, Kane is still without the trophies he moved to Bayern Munich for, although Vincent Kompany’s side are on track to win the title this season.

And a recent report in the Daily Telegraph revealed that Kane has a release clause in his Bayern Munich contract that will become active next Janaury.

Arsenal are in desperate need for a striker with season-ending injuries to Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz highlighting their need for depth in that position, while there is a widespread view that they need a clinical goalscorer to win the Premier League and other trophies.

Newcastle’s Alexander Isak and RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko have been of interest but neither were a possibility in the January transfer window.

Arsenal instead moved for Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins with a bid of around £40m turned down by their Premier League rivals and Mikel Arteta has now been left without a senior striker.

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But now former Tottenham and Man Utd scout Mick Brown insists that Arsenal could move for Kane in the summer if they become “convinced” that the England international would “make the move”.

Brown told Football Insider: “Arsenal would have to be convinced Kane would make the move.

“If they go in strong for that deal, put all their eggs in that basket, and then Harry Kane knocks them back because of his Tottenham allegiances, the fans wouldn’t be happy.

“It’s a deal that, if they want to do, they have to be very careful with it. They have to do the work quietly and behind the scenes before they make their move.

“You have to know what the end result is before you get there – so that would mean speaking to Kane and his representatives and seeing what they think.

“Maybe he’s open to it, maybe he isn’t, it depends on how he views his situation at Tottenham. But, if they get the thumbs-up from them, they can go to Bayern Munich with money in their hands.

“It would probably be a complicated deal for them to do if you consider everything around it, but I always say, nothing surprises me in football any more.”

Roy Keane insists it’s Ange Postecoglou’s “time to suffer” in response to the Tottenham manager’s complaints before having a pop at one of his players.

Postecoglou under huge pressure after his side were knocked out of both the Carabao Cup and FA Cup in the space of four days.

They’re currently 14th in the Premier league having won just eight of their 24 games this season, with the Europa League their only remaining chance of a trophy this term after Postecoglou insisted he would land them a gong in his second season.

Postecoglou has consistently pointed to their admittedly significant injury crisis in a packed schedule in defence of his side’s awful results, and for now the club chiefs are sticking by the Australian, but for how much longer?

Keane insists Postecoglou will have had little “sympathy” for the managers of smaller clubs while he was in charge of Celtic, so needs to take his medicine.

Roy Keane told Stick to Football, brought to you by Sky Bet: “[On Ange Postecoglou] When [a club] signs a big contract with the manager – imagine if the manager is sitting with whoever he’s negotiating with and goes, ‘I want 20 million and I’ll be really good with no midweek games’.

“If a manager was fresh going into the job every time, then it would be a fantastic job. However, it does take its toll with the fatigue, the travelling and the European games.

“When Ange [Postecoglou] was manager at Celtic and he was playing the likes of Dundee and Hibs every week – with the smallest squads – I don’t think Ange was feeling sorry for them. It’s now Ange’s time to suffer – like lots of other managers.

“Celtic had the biggest budget and the best players, and do you think he had sympathy at Dundee when he was winning 7,8,9-0? He won there one day, 9-0 – he didn’t care less.”

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Keane also doubts whether Spurs will enjoy the uptick in form Postecoglou is banking on when some of his players return to fitness, insisting if he thinks James Maddison is the answer then he’s “in cuckoo land”.

He added: “Which players [are we] talking about coming back that can help Spurs? I agree with [Micky van de Ven, Guglielmo Vicario] – that’s two. [Destiny] Udogie is not bad.

“We saw James Maddison at Tamworth, he was taken off! Tamworth are non-league. People say, ‘Maddison’s the man’, but when is he going to step up to the plate?

“He got relegated with Leicester [City] and [looks like] with Spurs. Maddison isn’t bad but if you think he’s going to come back and get Spurs top six, you’re in cuckoo land.

“He’s a talented player, but if you’re a player in the Spurs dressing room and he’s back in the squad, you wouldn’t be looking and going, ‘James is back today – we’re going to be fine!’.

“I saw him James Maddison at [Manchester] City when they won that game 4-0 and I thought he blended the quality of his attacking with actually being good in his defensive duties. I actually said that he set a standard that night that he’s got to continue to keep. He’s not consistent – that’s the problem with him.”

Louis Saha has tipped a Premier League manager to replace Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham.

The Spurs boss is under huge pressure after his side were knocked out of both the Carabao Cup and FA Cup in the space of four days.

They’re currently 14th in the Premier league having won just eight of their 24 games this season, with the Europa League their only remaining chance of a trophy this term after Postecoglou insisted he would land them a gong in his second season.

Postecoglou has consistently pointed to their admittedly significant injury crisis in defence of his side’s awful results, and for now the club chiefs are sticking by the Australian, but for how much longer?

Saha reckons his former club should be looking to another of his former clubs in Fulham for Postecoglou’s replacement.

“Marco Silva has been brilliant for Fulham, and he’s one of those managers that has improved in the Premier League,” the ex-France international told Paddy Power.

“He wasn’t getting results like this at his previous clubs, but he’s kept his style and managed to bring in players at Fulham and make them better, which is a huge achievement for him.

“I can see the attraction of him joining a bigger club like Tottenham if they do replace their manager, but I do wish the best for Marco because he’s done well.

“I don’t want him to go because I like Fulham playing the way they play. He can bring them into Europe and onto a bigger stage – he can build something special.

“The atmosphere around the club is brilliant, and they can still improve by bringing in some world-class players and building even bigger.”

Postecoglou has been full of praise for his Tottenham players, who have been flogged over the last couple of months thanks to the injury crisis.

“We have a couple of weeks now where we don’t have midweek games,” Postecoglou said after his side’s FA Cup exit.

“This group has done an unbelievable job for two and a half months. I can’t praise them enough, playing twice a week since November. They’ll get the chance to reset now and finish the season strong.

“Europe is still very important to us, we’re still in a great spot there, and we’ll hope to get some players back over the next two weeks.

“We’ll get players back which will help. We had 11 first-team players out today. Take that out of any team for one game and they would struggle – we’ve been doing that for two and a half months.

“The players are going out there and giving everything they can. It would be a lot better if they had some help.”

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The majority of fans have aimed their wrath at chairman Daniel Levy and the board rather than Postecoglou, and won’t be happy with a report in The Guardian that the Qatari investors that are looking to buy the club would want to keep Levy at the helm.

‘The Guardian has learned that a group of Qatari investors are willing to give Levy a long-term contract to continue running Spurs as executive chairman.

‘Retaining Levy would be a controversial move given the antipathy towards the chairman from many Tottenham fans, but the investors are keen to retain his expertise.

‘They want control of Spurs but the proposed takeover could take the form of a phased buyout. Under one model being considered by the investors, Levy would be offered a management contract to run the club, which would remain in place even if Enic, that owns 86.91% of Tottenham, becomes a minority shareholder.

‘Levy has been the most influential figure at Tottenham since 2001, when Enic bought 29.9% of the club from Alan Sugar before gaining full control six years later. Under Levy’s leadership Spurs’s financial position has been transformed, with the 63-year-old masterminding the building of their new stadium and establishing Tottenham as one of the richest clubs in Europe with an annual income of more than £500m.’

Liverpool might have their Premier and Champions League dreams dashed in a matter of days in May, but not before ruining Chelsea and Newcastle’s seasons.

Inspired by Tottenham exiting two cups in the space of just a few days, here is how every other Premier League club still in multiple competitions could catch Spursitis and suffer a similar season implosion.

Liverpool

May 6/7 – Champions League semi-final second leg

May 10 – Arsenal (h, Premier League)

The complexion on this Liverpool season will be much clearer in a fortnight. After fairly successfully balancing competitions – up to the regrettable Plymouth FA Cup defeat – Arne Slot prepares for five Premier League games from the Merseyside derby on February 12 to Newcastle’s trip to Anfield on February 26.

They then have a solitary Premier League game in March in between a Champions League last-16 tie, before the Carabao final at the end of that month.

Paris Saint-Germain would be a fine test of their continental credentials, easily the worst possible draw from them, Brest, Monaco or Benfica.

It might be that the title is wrapped up by then or their European campaign collapses earlier, but if Liverpool can keep both plates spinning for long enough, then a Champions League semi-final second leg a handful of days before welcoming Arsenal to Anfield with the Premier League still alive looks delightful.

Arsenal

March 4/5 – Champions League round of 16 first leg (a)

March 9 – Manchester United (a, Premier League)

Having wisely streamlined their season – with help from Alexander Isak and Ruben Amorim – to focus only on the two most important competitions, Arsenal have opened themselves up to the ignominy of another trophyless campaign.

That Liverpool sequence is crucial as Arsenal will go from six points behind having played a game more, to any potential gap having played a game less by the end of February.

March then immediately starts with a bang of that Champions League tie against Juventus, PSV, Feyenoord or Milan, before jumping straight into another meeting with Manchester United when no more domestic slips can be afforded.

Nottingham Forest

February 23 – Newcastle (a, Premier League)

February 26 – Arsenal (h, Premier League)

The response to a thrashing at Bournemouth suggests that one-off results will not derail Nottingham Forest’s momentum any time soon. Brighton were hammered in kind before Nuno’s fringe selection stumbled past Exeter and into the FA Cup fifth round.

It has been a while since Forest were the highest-ranked team left in that competition and there might come a point when Champions League qualification takes a reluctant back seat to the prospect of an actual trophy, or at least shifts across to the passenger side.

But the Premier League remains the priority and Forest will take some shifting. Only once this season have they lost consecutive games and late February offers an opportunity to atone or repeat those reverses against Newcastle and Arsenal, neither of whom particularly struggled en route to scoring three times each in November.

Forest do have a healthy six-point cushion to sixth place and really qualification for any European tournament would be a phenomenal achievement. But facing two of their most difficult opponents in four days makes their position feel a little more precarious.

Chelsea

May 1 – Europa Conference League semi-final first leg

May 3 – Liverpool (h, Premier League)

“If there is something good after a defeat it’s that now we can be focused on the Premier League and Conference,” was a weird thing to hear a Chelsea manager say in the aftermath of avoidable FA Cup elimination.

After dispatching lower-league sides with 5-0 victories in the third round of both domestic cups, Chelsea were immediately knocked out by Premier League opposition thereafter. Enzo Maresca’s comments betrayed just how far standards have been lowered at Stamford Bridge.

It also eradicates any excuse for failure from this point and the expectation can only really be Champions League qualification with a shiny new Conference League trophy to boot.

Chelsea sauntered through the group stage with laughable ease and Gent, Real Betis, Copenhagen or Heidenheim await in the next round, two of whom they have already beaten. They are overwhelming favourites to win the whole thing but if that complacency creeps in again they will be punished.

And that Premier League run-in is not kind. Chelsea might hope to have a Champions League place wrapped up by May, a month in which they face Liverpool, Newcastle, Manchester United and Nottingham Forest.

Manchester City

February 19 – Real Madrid (a, Champions League)

February 23 – Liverpool (h, Premier League)

Another amateurish late capitulation at the Etihad has left Manchester City facing a third straight Champions League elimination at the hands of Real Madrid. They must emerge victorious in the second leg at the Bernabeu, having only won at Molineux, the King Power, Portman Road, Brisbane Road and the Slovakian national stadium since August.

Their Premier League situation is not quite as dire but it remains precarious. Manchester City are fifth but anyone down to Brighton in 10th could feasibly catch them and they have not strung together more than two consecutive wins since the end of October.

While the FA Cup should provide some respite, Pep Guardiola and his side no longer engender confidence they can even dispatch Plymouth at home confidently. And that is very much a distant third on their list of priorities either way.

Newcastle United

March 10 – West Ham (a, Premier League)

March 16 – Liverpool (n, Carabao Cup)

Wembley is not ready for Jason Tindall to roll out the WHAM! hoodie twice in a matter of months but Newcastle are achingly close to a cup final double with Champions League qualification to boot.

The hope ahead of the Carabao Cup showpiece might simply be that they score an actual goal, having failed to do so in each of their last three domestic finals. But Newcastle have not beaten Liverpool since December 2015 so a first trophy in seven decades remains difficult to envisage.

They can ill afford to lose concentration in the Premier League either. With that winning run over, Newcastle are a mere point clear of dropping out of the European qualification places and while a run of Manchester City, Nottingham Forest and Liverpool before the final plays conversely into their hands, any momentum built could be squandered against West Ham as it was back in November.

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Bournemouth

February 25 – Brighton (a, Premier League)

February 28-March 3 – Wolves (h, FA Cup)

A potentially historic season is entering the final straight. Bournemouth’s highest-ever league finish was ninth on 46 points in 2016/17, which Andoni Iraola might reasonably expect a side on 40 points in seventh to surpass with 14 games remaining.

The Cherries have also only twice reached the FA Cup quarter-final and never any further. The vintages of 1956/57 and 2020/21 really should be transcended soon but Wolves will not roll over as they did in December, while a volatile Brighton side who beat their south coast brethren earlier this season must be sidestepped first.

Aston Villa

March 4/5 – Champions League round of 16 first leg (a)

March 8 – Brentford (a, Premier League)

The FA Cup is again a welcome distraction but Aston Villa did not risk financial oblivion by adding to their ludicrous wage bill in January to manoeuvre past Cardiff at home on their way to glory at Wembley.

Unai Emery will not want to pick his favourite child out of winning European competitions and trying to qualify for European competitions so he can win them, which is where Marcus Rashford, Donyell Malen and Marco Asensio come in.

Villa might well need the Champions League to actually function as an institution beyond the next couple of years and Club Brugge, Atalanta, Sporting or Borussia Dortmund is an appealing list of potential opponents.

But that hangover of post-Champions League results in the Premier League – P7 W1 D3 L3 F6 A10 – must be addressed imminently, starting with the Brentford game.

Fulham

February 25 – Wolves (a, Premier League)

February 28-March 3 – Manchester United (a, FA Cup)

Another side at a seasonal crossroads, it is equally conceivable for Fulham to qualify for Europe or finish squarely mid-table, much as it is they reach the latter stages of the FA Cup or are knocked out in the next round.

Those two games in particular do at least bring the prospect of revenge. The Cottagers crumbled at home to Gary O’Neil’s Wolves in November and are the only side other than Southampton to have been beaten twice in the league by Manchester United this season.

Brighton

February 28-March 3 – Newcastle (a, FA Cup)

March 8 – Fulham (h, Premier League)

The same pretty much stands for Brighton, who can sense yet more FA Cup semi-final disappointment on the horizon and are at the bottom end of the teams with European aspirations, far enough from those immediately below them. A trophy would vindicate one kneejerk reaction.

Crystal Palace

March 29 – FA Cup quarter-final

April 5 – Brighton (h, Premier League)

With no disrespect intended towards Millwall, the best way of injecting some stakes into this Palace season is for them to reach the FA Cup quarter-finals and contend with a game against bitter rivals Brighton a few days later.

Palace have not done the league double over Brighton since 1932 and still count the 1991 Zenith Data Systems Cup as their closest thing to tangible silverware. Of course, far more important is that they finish on 40-something points. Just ten but absolutely not 20 or more to go.

Manchester United

February 28-March 1 – Fulham (h, FA Cup)

March 6 – Europa League round of 16 first leg (a)

The likelihood remains that plucky Manchester United will cobble together just about enough points to bravely stave off relegation to the Championship. They should just be able to win a couple of games entirely accidentally, but if not then Manchester City rock up at Old Trafford in April as an apparent gimme.

Attention thus turns to the cups and how Manchester United have somehow contrived to be among the favourites to win both. The FA Cup field looks wonderfully refreshing ahead of an inevitable Manchester derby final with pre-match build-up narrated by John Cooper Clarke, while there is no-one to fear in the Europa beyond themselves.

Manchester United’s ability to win trophies even at their most incompetent is about to be tested more than ever before. The only uncertainty is how much credit Erik ten Hag will claim when his medals are posted out.

Tottenham

Can the same be said for Tottenham with regards to relegation? They are only two points worse off than Manchester United but their position does feel far more perilous somehow.

Undoubtedly the best-case scenario would be to continue hobbling through their Premier League campaign without ever establishing a comfortable points cushion to those below, while finding yet more children to play and thrive in the Europa.

Following that track, Tottenham could encounter a boom-or-bust situation in the final month of the season and Ryan Mason has the minerals to guide them through to a second rapid season implosion.

Wolves

February 28-March 3 – Bournemouth (a, FA Cup)

March 8 – Everton (h, Premier League)

Fair play to Wolves, who have introduced some excitement into their last two relatively middling seasons by combining eventually comfortable fights against relegation with fairly deep cup runs.

They are still awkwardly grouped with the bottom three but Everton, seven points above them, could be pulled back into danger with a home win at Molineux. Before then, Wolves will hope to reach a quarter-final for the third consecutive campaign to show Matheus Cunha it might be worth sticking around even though it probably definitely isn’t.

Ipswich

February 22 – Tottenham (h, Premier League)

February 26 – Manchester United (a, Premier League)

Kieran McKenna might place an egg or two in the FA Cup basket but drawing Nottingham Forest at the City Ground at least removes any pretence that Ipswich could try and win it.

They have not spent £135m this season to reach a cup quarter-final; Premier League survival is the only metric by which they should be judged.

Wolves are only three points ahead of the Tractor Boys before reaching that gaggle of seemingly safe clubs who absolutely can be dragged back into danger. Spurs and Manchester United should count themselves among them and having beaten the former before drawing with the latter earlier this season, Ipswich might genuinely have circled those fixtures as two of their best remaining chances to scurry out of the bottom three.

A group of Qatari investors want to keep Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy on at the club if they manage to complete a takeover of the Premier League club.

Spurs are currently suffering on the pitch with Ange Postecoglou’s side currently 14th in the Premier League table after 24 matches.

Tottenham, who are valued at £3.75m, have taken a big step forward off the pitch in recent years with Spurs moving into a new stadium and increasing revenue streams.

But success off the pitch isn’t marrying up with what supporters are seeing on the pitch with Tottenham fans increasingly frustrated at Levy’s decisions.

There was hope towards the end of last year that former Newcastle United co-owner Amanda Staveley was leading an effort to buy Tottenham with Qatari VIPs, in similar fashion to how she helped PIF buy the Magpies.

Former Everton chairman Keith Wyness pointed out in October that Staveley’s recent moves to liquidate her businesses were “not a blow to her hopes of investing at Spurs” as she is “clearing house”.

Wyness said: “I don’t think this is a negative sign in any move for Tottenham. This is more of a housekeeping exercise for Amanda and her past companies. There are some legal issues with a Greek investor who loaned her some money.

“There is also PCP, the vehicle she went through for the Newcastle investment.

“Everything will be tidied up, and this may well be in advance of the Tottenham deal getting done. It’s making sure everything is in order.

“She’s cleaning house and getting everything set so any vehicle she uses to invest in Tottenham is totally clean and free of any problems.”

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And now more details of a potential deal with Qatari investors has emerged with The Guardian claiming that Levy ‘could be given the chance to stay on at Tottenham by a consortium seeking to buy the club’.

The report adds:

‘The Guardian has learned that a group of Qatari investors are willing to give Levy a long-term contract to continue running Spurs as executive chairman.

‘Retaining Levy would be a controversial move given the antipathy towards the chairman from many Tottenham fans, but the investors are keen to retain his expertise.

‘They want control of Spurs but the proposed takeover could take the form of a phased buyout. Under one model being considered by the investors, Levy would be offered a management contract to run the club, which would remain in place even if Enic, that owns 86.91% of Tottenham, becomes a minority shareholder.

‘Levy has been the most influential figure at Tottenham since 2001, when Enic bought 29.9% of the club from Alan Sugar before gaining full control six years later. Under Levy’s leadership Spurs’s financial position has been transformed, with the 63-year-old masterminding the building of their new stadium and establishing Tottenham as one of the richest clubs in Europe with an annual income of more than £500m.’

Man Utd are “going to push” for the signing of Bayern Munich striker Harry Kane in the summer transfer window, according to the club’s former chief scout.

The Red Devils spent around £180m on new signings in the summer transfer window with Joshua Zirkzee, Noussair Mazraoui, Matthijs de Ligt, Leny Yoro and Manuel Ugarte arriving under Erik ten Hag.

However, that recruitment drive negatively impacted the January transfer window with new manager Ruben Amorim afforded one new player in Patrick Dorgu.

Man Utd are reportedly close to their Premier League profit and sustainability (PSR) limit with the Red Devils even considering sales of young players like Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho to balance the books.

Kane is a player that has been linked with a move to Old Trafford for years after showing his incredible goalscoring ability at Tottenham.

Despite strong interest from Man Utd in 2023, it became apparent Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy would not sell to a Premier League rival, especially the Red Devils.

That led to Kane eventually leaving for Bayern Munich instead that summer with the Bavarians paying an initial £83m to seal a transfer for the England captain.

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But Man Utd are desperate for a striker who can score goals consistently, with Kane bagging 72 goals in 73 matches since joining Bayern Munich, and former Red Devils chief scout Mick Brown – who is still well-connected at Old Trafford – insists Ratcliffe “wants” the England international in the summer.

Brown told Football Insider: “INEOS want a star name to hang their hat on, as it were. They view Harry Kane as that player, and if he’s available, they’re going to push for that.

“He’s moved away from the Premier League and the pressures and demands of this league, and he’s gone to play for a team and in a league where it’s a bit more comfortable.

“The question I would have is whether he’s going to be prepared to step back into the Premier League. But you also have to ask about the finances involved, and where the £54million is coming from.

“If that’s going to come from player sales, the likes of Kobbie Mainoo or Alejandro Garnacho, then that’s not worth doing in my opinion. Knowing how INEOS work, though, and what they want to do, it wouldn’t surprise me at all.

“I think Ratcliffe wants Kane – but it has to be a footballing decision. The footballing side of the club need to be in agreement, because what’s the point of Ratcliffe wanting him if Ruben Amorim doesn’t?

“They’ve all got to sit down and work out whether he fits into the style of play and then they can make the decision whether or not to bring him in.”

Tottenham give up leads and are particularly terrible in one specific 15-minute period, while Ruben Amorim’s made Man Utd a whole lot worse and fast starts are the way to go vs Liverpool.

We’ve been terrible at plugging the soon-to-be famous F365 Tables, which we’ve had a lovely time poring over to bring you 16 Conclusions. It’s right there on the homepage, there’s 21 of them in total, and they’ve got nifty filtering options and all sorts of other user-friendly features.

Arne Slot’s side have won all 15 games in which they’ve taken the lead, scoring 41 goals and conceding just eight: an absurd record. They’ve also lost just one game when they’ve conceded first, winning two, but teams have shared the points with Liverpool on five occasions when they’ve scored the opening goal. Fast starts are the way to go.

One of the tables where you can easily lose an hour is the Table By Custom Match Period, which allows us to appreciate Bournemouth’s unrivalled fitness levels, which has seen Andoni Iraola’s side score an incredible nine goals after the 90-minute mark.

We spent almost as much time selecting Tottenham match periods as we did writing this, revelling in discovering that their woes this season are almost entirely down to one specific 15-minute period in games.

Obviously across the full 90+ minutes they’re 14th, but in almost every other possible selection they’re in the top half: Third after 15 minutes; fourth after 30; seventh in the second half; eighth in first-half stoppage time; second in second-half stoppage time.

It’s on the 30-minute mark that they lose it, briefly, but dramatically to completely f*** their season. They would be 17th if games were decided on the basis of that witching quarter-hour, in which they’ve conceded 10 goals.

We miraculously stumbled on some Manchester United positivity here as only Liverpool (4) have lost fewer points from winning positions than the Red Devils (6) this season. Arne Slot’s side have been ahead in 19 games to their rivals’ 11, but still, no defeats in 11 when taking the lead is something to cling to for Ruben Amorim.

Ange Postecoglou isn’t granted the same hope though, with Spurs dropping more points (21) than any other Premier League team from winning positions. They’ve taken the lead in 16 games, winning eight, drawing three and losing five, and would currently be third on 47 points had they held onto the lead in all of them. Ouch.

It won’t come as a huge surprise that Manchester United’s Big Chance position is better than their actual spot in the table given the wastes of space Ruben Amorim has as options to lead the line, but they’re by no means a creative force to be reckoned with; their 47 Big Chances is the 11th best in the division.

Forest’s 44 sees them in 13th, which is remarkable given their charge for Champions League qualification, particularly as they’ve scored 41 goals from those 44 presentable opportunities.

The Table Between Two Dates may be our favourite of all, mainly as it allows us to bask in the glory or misery of managers taking over mid-season. Only Liverpool and Arsenal (both 10) have won more points than Everton’s nine since David Moyes returned.

That’s more points in four games than they won in the previous10 under Sean Dyche, with the eight goals scored so far under Moyes as many as they managed in the previous 13.

We all predicted a tough time for Amorim, but we don’t think anyone, including Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the players and the man himself, thought they would get worse.

Erik ten Hag was shown the door on October 28 with them in 14th after defeat to West Ham, their fourth loss in nine games, and they’re now 13th, but wouldn’t be in that superior position had it not been for the four points won under the caretaker watch of Ruud van Nistelrooy, with Amorim’s 13 games yielding just 14 points, the 15th-worst record in the Premier League in that time.

While we’re on the plight of Manchester United (when are we not?), the impact of Marcus Rashford, or rather the lack of Marcus Rashford is a good laugh.

Thanks to Rashford’s three goals in Amorim’s opening two Premier League games, United broke into the top half for the first time since the opening day, at which point he was dropped to the bench for the Arsenal clash (before being dropped altogether and then banished), ushering in the real sh*t for Amorim, as they’ve lost seven of their 11 games since, scoring just nine goals, with just four teams experiencing a worse record in that time.

Chelsea were second and just four points off Liverpool on Christmas Day, with their fine early-season form requiring Enzo Maresca to – wisely, as it turns out – bat away talk of a title challenge. Since then they’ve won just eight points in seven games, just one more than Manchester United.

Only Liverpool (22) have won more points against teams in the top half of the table than Fulham (18), who have also played the fewest number of games (10) against those sides and have picked up the same number of points in 14 games against bottom-half sides. Bumpy track bullies.

No Premier League team has had less possession on average than Nottingham Forest (40%), with Southampton (52%) further proving how overrated having the ball is.

Many Gooners claimed David Raya was the best goalkeeper in the Premier League last season because he kept the most clean sheets, in the process downplaying the extraordinary feats of the indomitable centre-backs standing in front of him. By that same logic, Jordan Pickford is now the superior stopper having kept nine clean sheets this term to Raya’s eight.

Mikel Arteta’s side have become less reliant on Nicolas Jover and his set-pieces since we last did 16 Conclusions on these tables, but if Tottenham fans aren’t bringing up open play goals as The Real Quiz given their side has scored 37 to Arsenal’s 35 then we have no faith in their capacity for pettiness.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s side are the story of the season, with their success thanks in large part due to their league-high 10 clean sheets, which means they often need just one goal to win a game (though seven is nice) and they’ve taken the lead in an incredible 19 games this season. Arsenal are next best on 16.

Gone are the days when opposition teams rocked up to Old Trafford in the hope of escaping with their dignity intact rather than with a victory or even a draw in mind. It’s now a very happy hunting ground, particularly in the Ruben Amorim era.

They’ve lost seven and won just five at home this season, and five of those defeats have come in Amorim’s seven games at his Theatre of Nightmares, with his only victories coming over Southampton – that one entirely down to a late Amad Diallo show – and Everton.

They’ve conceded first in nine of their 13 games at home, which is more than any other team but Leicester (10).

Daniel Levy is seemingly very reluctant to do the very obviously necessary and put Ange Postecoglou out of his and our misery. Spurs are bad and getting worse and the only really compelling argument against not sacking him now is that it should have been done weeks and weeks ago.

But Spurs continue to wait. We think we can sort of understand why they’re doing that, but we are very sure they’re wrong. Here are five reasons we’ve heard for why Spurs shouldn’t sack Postecoglou now, and why we think they’re bunk.

‘You can’t keep sacking managers every 18 months’

Obviously correct. And we strongly suspect Levy hasn’t pulled the pin on Postecoglou precisely because he desperately doesn’t want to have yet another manager chewed up and spat out inside two seasons.

It is, undeniably, a theme of Levy’s Spurs chairmanship. Spurs have appointed 12 new permanent managers under Levy’s watch, and of those only Martin Jol, Harry Redknapp and Mauricio Pochettino have managed to survive for two full years.

Spurs have become locked in a cycle of 18 months under one manager, a sacking, a caretaker stint (or two if you’re really lucky) and then another new manager, and then rinse and indeed repeat.

It is very obviously a strategy that is not working. Spurs have been sinking, with the odd misleading bob back to the surface, since the final 18 months under Pochettino.

So, yes, we get why there is reluctance and resistance towards doing the same thing again and expecting different results.

But that this is a negative overall trend that Levy and Spurs should absolutely look to reverse in general doesn’t automatically make it the wrong move right here, right now, in the very specific instance of them being catastrophically worse and at more immediate risk of actual disaster than at any point since the 1990s.

Even if all of those other managerial departures were wrong, the point is that Spurs now are worse than they were at any time under any of those managers.

Yes, you might well have been wrong to bin off Andre Villas-Boas at the first sign of trouble. But we are so very far beyond the first sign of trouble here. About 15 months beyond it.

TL;DR: It being wrong to sack every manager after 18 months doesn’t mean it’s automatically wrong to sack this one.

READ: Who will be the next manager of Tottenham after Ange Postecoglou?

‘Are you not entertained?’

We get it. Postecoglou is a decent guy and quite entertaining himself. His post-match interviews are always good value after big win, occasional draw or yet another harrowing defeat.

People like him. Specifically, people in the media like him and enjoy the daft and entertaining football his team plays. But as we’ve noted before, the problem with his ‘entertaining’ football is that it is only really entertaining if you don’t actually support Spurs.

There is no great desire to drum Postecoglou out of Our League. He might be a foreigner, but he’s the right sort of foreigner, isn’t he? A straightforward, plain-speaking foreigner and most importantly not a bloody nerd, mate.

England’s sporting relationship with Australia is always an interesting one. The rivalry is obvious, but deep down it’s one built on a grudging respect that for all their ghastly uncouth faults, Australia are really bloody good at sport. And they play it properly, don’t they?

It is somehow different to other sporting rivalries in this country. We frequently find ourselves wondering just how different the media coverage of Postecoglou and Spurs might be were the exact same results coming from more dour football played under an irritatingly chippy American who uses slightly different terminology to the rest of us, or a bespectacled German nerd with a laptop.

And what we suspect is that he’d be long, long gone. One reason Levy has been able to avoid sacking Postecoglou is that there really hasn’t been a concerted media effort to nudge him towards doing so. The outside noise has never become deafening, because everyone (else) has always found it entertaining.

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‘Can’t judge him during an injury crisis’

Postecoglou is the injury crisis.

It is paradoxically the most frequent mitigation for Postecoglou’s terrible results while simultaneously being largely his fault.

Postecoglou defenders using this line very rarely pause to consider just why Spurs have been in the midst of a catastrophic injury crisis for all but the first three months of his reign.

Some injuries really are bad luck. Contact injuries in a contact sport will happen and you do just have to cope with those as and when they arise.

But that all too often leads to a situation where all injuries are dismissed as rotten bad luck with no further investigation. Spurs have had a couple of those unlucky injuries – most notably and damagingly to goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario.

But the overwhelming majority of the injuries are soft-tissue injuries. There can be bad luck here, but when you as a club find yourself having an unprecedented run of such ‘bad luck’ and it’s happening under a manager who prides himself on tactics that involve non-stop running and swapping of positions for 90 minutes twice a week and also replicating that workload in training, and also a lot of the injuries you have suffered have happened in training, then it does start to look like it might be worth at least considering that it might not just be bad luck after all.

But most importantly, when all that’s happening, the injury crisis becomes self-sustaining. The injuries mean you have to rely on a smaller pool of players at any given time, that pool of players is overworked and itself becomes more susceptible to injuries.

The specific names of unavailable players may change over time, but as some players return, all the evidence points to new ones getting injured in an endless doom-spiral of churn.

Postecoglou himself has taken to talking about ‘when we get the players back’ but this is a fantasy. Spurs will never have all their players back. They will never have a fully-fit squad. Angeball as a system breaks players.

Now you can decide for yourself how you want to divvy up the blame for Spurs’ injury crisis: Postecoglou himself for the brand of football, the medical staff for not coping better, and Levy for not realising that he was hiring a manager who would require a squad of at least 30 first-team-ready footballers which he was never, ever going to provide him.

But the options for Spurs are: sack Postecoglou and try something different, build an enormous squad capable of surviving the rigours of Angeball, or cope with a permanent state of injury crisis.

What they can’t do is keep pretending this state of affairs is unfortunate or mitigating.

MAILBOX: Ange Postecoglou should learn from Unai Emery on injury ‘moans’

‘He’s showing more willingness to adapt.’

He is, kind of. But it’s primitive. Even the new adaptable, versatile Spurs still only operate at one of two extremes. It’s double the number of plans they used to have, sure, but it’s still very basic

There’s the trusty old Plan A – the one where they all run around all the time in all directions and either win 4-0 or lose 4-3 – and the new Plan B – the Jose-lite low-block-and-counter where they sit six or seven men behind the ball and only the other three or four run about in all directions and they either win 2-0 or lose 4-0.

These are not the subtle tactical tweaks of an Andoni Iraola or situational adaptations of a Thomas Frank or Marco Silva. This is sledgehammer nut-cracking, an almost sarcastic response to criticism of witless all-out attacking by resorting instead to witless all-out defending.

‘He hasn’t been backed with the players he needs.’

This really has elements of all the previous three problems. He has been backed, and a lot more than some previous Spurs managers who were given less time and opportunity to make it work.

He hasn’t been given all the players he needs, but it’s become clear that this could never be. For reasons Spurs-specific and more general.

The Spurs-specific ones are that we know how Spurs operate. Now we have every sympathy with the Levy Out position but what we will keep saying is that the changes you want to see that might come about from Levy Out probably still won’t if it’s Ange In.

Spurs are never going to have a squad of 30 first-team-ready players to switch and rotate as the season unfolds. But do you know who does have that? Pretty much nobody. Chelsea at a push, and it does them at least as much harm as good because of the chaos and uncertainty it generates.

You know what you’ve got if you’ve got the dream squad of two equally good players ready to slot into every position? A bunch of unhappy underused players.

It really isn’t talked about enough just how demanding Angeball is on the players. They really do sprint harder and further than anyone else. And crucially they do this both in and out of possession; that’s what separates them from literally everybody else.

There are teams who play a high-intensity game in possession but low intensity when they don’t have the ball. Your Forests, your Fulhams.

There are teams who play a high-intensity game out of possession but low intensity when they have it. This is the classic Man City way, and the key change Arne Slot has made at Liverpool from the more hectic, Ange-adjacent (though never as extreme) stylings of Jurgen Klopp.

And then you have the middle ground where most teams live, for better (Arsenal) or worse (Southampton). And then right out on their own, you have Spurs.

This season Spurs players have spent more time sprinting when out of possession than anyone else in the league. But they are also third, behind only Newcastle and Fulham, for time spent sprinting when in possession.

Nobody else in the Premier League plays like this. It is fundamentally impossible to back that unsustainable system with the players it needs in a competitive league. There is a reason why it worked wonderfully well for 10 games and hasn’t worked since.