Tottenham Hotspur suffered their 15th loss of the Premier League season away at Fulham after a performance that piles further pressure on manager Ange Postecoglou.
Spurs struggled to get going in west London and were punished in the second half as goals from Rodrigo Muniz and Ryan Sessegnon handed Fulham a 2-0 win.
The result leaves Tottenham in 13th, but ahead of Everton, Manchester United and West Ham United only on goal difference.
Here, our writers analyse the key talking points from the match.
Is Europa League the only reason Postecoglou is still in the job?
With the Europa League quarter-final taking precedence, this season is still yet to be defined from a Spurs perspective. Still, 15 league defeats with nine games remaining is not good enough. Tottenham last lost more games in a Premier League season than this in 2003-04 (19).
Spurs were clearly second-best in the first half and were perhaps fortunate to go in at the break on level terms. The introduction of Son Heung-min and Lucas Bergvall after the interval prompted an improvement, and there were opportunities to take the lead, particularly through Dominic Solanke, who should have done better with an effort from close range.
The match looked set to finish 0-0, which would’ve been Spurs’ first goalless draw in the league since April 2022, but Muniz put Fulham ahead in the 78th minute. Ten minutes later, former Tottenham man Sessegnon put the match beyond doubt with a curled effort into the top corner.
It means that Spurs have won one of their last five matches: the crucial midweek 3-1 result against AZ. Postecoglou has been reluctant to roll out his best XI at every opportunity, but at some point, an improvement in results can’t be overlooked.
If it was in question before, it is now beyond doubt: with just goal difference separating them from 16th, only Europa League success can save Tottenham’s season.
Elias Burke
Bissouma is running out of time
Archie Gray’s first start in defensive midfield became even more significant when Postecoglou took Yves Bissouma off at half-time for the second game in a row. Bissouma underperformed in the first half and at one point passed the ball straight out of play. The Mali international will only have one year left on his contract in the summer and it feels like his long-term future lies somewhere else.
Bissouma has made 22 appearances and 14 starts for Spurs in the league this season but his minutes have reduced dramatically recently. He did not come off the bench in last month’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester City and only made brief cameos in the victories over Manchester United and Ipswich Town.
In the Europa League, he was an unused substitute in the first leg against AZ and his involvement was limited to around 15 minutes in the second leg.
It has become clear that he does not belong in Postecoglou’s strongest starting XI. There is even an argument to be made that Bissouma is now their sixth-choice central midfielder behind James Maddison, Pape Matar Sarr, Rodrigo Bentancur, Bergvall and Gray.
Include Dejan Kulusevski in that mix, and he drops even further down. The quality of Bergvall’s performances, especially when you remember that he only turned 19 in February, have probably accelerated the phasing out of Bissouma.
Away from the pitch, Bissouma has been described as a big brother by Sarr and he is close to Destiny Udogie and Wilson Odobert, too. However, his influence on it is waning.
Jay Harris
Gray a rare bright spot for Tottenham
The youngster has deputised excellently as a centre-back amid Spurs’ injury crisis, but after a long wait, fans finally saw him in his natural midfield position from the start.
Gray lined up at the base of a midfield trio, with Bissouma and Bentancur playing slightly ahead of him. Before injuries at Leeds prompted his manager Daniel Farke to shift him to right-back last season, it was the position he broke through in at Elland Road after impressing in that role at youth level for for club and country.
The 19-year-old started the game strongly, breaking up possession on several occasions and shifting the ball forward quickly for his team-mates in attacking positions. It wasn’t an easy first test for Gray in that position, with Fulham’s creative midfielders swarming his every touch, and there were moments in the first half where a loose control or weak tackle led to the ball breaking favourably for an opposition player. Still, he was quick to cover ground and win possession back.
His most important contribution of the first half was a vital block to prevent Alex Iwobi converting from close range. A few minutes into the second half, he demonstrated his technical quality, receiving the ball under pressure in the Spurs box and switching play to Son, who helped set Spurs away on the counter.
He shifted back into central defence in the 67th minute, replacing Cristian Romero, who was substituted for Maddison. Before that, however, he demonstrated more than enough to suggest he can be trusted to continue his development in holding midfield.
Elias Burke
Tel struggles to have an impact
Mathys Tel has lost a lot of momentum since he scored on his second appearance for Spurs at the beginning of February. Last week, he was substituted at half-time in the first leg of their Europa League tie against AZ and then did not play a single minute in the second leg or their 2-2 draw with Bournemouth.
He started on the left wing against Fulham but failed to grasp the opportunity. The 19-year-old was guilty of losing the ball on multiple occasions. You could sense his frustration because he would then charge around trying to immediately win possession back. In one scenario, he lunged into a tackle on Andreas Pereira by the touchline but missed him and then jumped back up before committing a foul on Iwobi.
But Tel did show a few brief flashes of his quality. The only chance Spurs generated in the first half came from his mazy run where he weaved in between Sander Berge, Pereira and Timothy Castagne before drilling a left-footed cross into the box that Solanke and Brennan Johnson just missed.
Tel’s curling shot in the second half was pushed away by Bernd Leno and Solanke should have buried the rebound.
Tel is still finding his feet at Tottenham and has probably not been helped by the rotating cast around him. He has played with different full-backs and midfield combinations, while he has been tried through the middle or out wide.
Nevertheless, Tel came from Bayern Munich with a huge reputation and still has a lot to prove.
Jay Harris
What did Postecoglou say?
“It’s unacceptable to see 15 league defeats. It’s nowhere near good enough, nowhere near the level we need to be, and I understand the supporters’ frustrations with that.
“Today wasn’t so much about performance — it was just another day when we let a game get away from us that we shouldn’t have. We weren’t played off the park and I felt that up until the point they scored, we were the team that was getting on top.
“We had a couple of good chances to go 1-0 up and that would have put the pressure on them, but it’s happened too many times this year. We’ve given the opposition a lift into the game by conceding soft goals.”
What next for Tottenham?
Thursday, April 3: Chelsea (Away), Premier League, 8pm UK, 3pm ET
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(Rob Newell – CameraSport via Getty Images)