Tottenham Hotspur are adrift.
In truth, they have been blindly drifting for weeks, if not months. Their appalling league form has been dismissed as a sideshow, an irrelevance, an inevitability given their injury crisis.
Everyone was happy to suspend judgement. Wait until the players get back from injury. Wait until the cup games. Wait until the resumption of European football.
But the problem with investing everything in the future is that you take your eyes off what is happening in front of you. And if you do that, you slip from league defeat to league defeat, from the European spots to mid-table to potential disaster, never confronting the reality of the situation.
That has been the story of Tottenham’s league campaign, their worst for a generation. They are — and this really has to be repeated until it sinks in — 15th in the Premier League table. They are only four points ahead of yesterday’s opponents Everton, who have a game in hand. They have lost more than half of their league games.
We could do this all day, listing all the different ways this season is a disaster, a catastrophe, without modern precedent. But all that can wait until May. Right now, Tottenham just need to save their season.
Usually, the league is Spurs’ priority but for much of this season, everyone’s attention has been on the three cup competitions. This squad are desperate to win a trophy for Tottenham this season. It is all the players talk about, which is in part why they have stuck together through such obvious difficulty.
That is why they could hit such heights when they really wanted to. They have won only three of the last 15 matches in 90 minutes: Manchester United and Liverpool in the Carabao Cup, Southampton in the league. For the rest of the time, the league games have looked like they were just the spare time between cup games, a chance to stay fresh and sharp ahead of the next one. And with the squad stretched so thin by injuries, and with the manager’s tactics under fire, the players have always had excuses to hide behind.
So Spurs drifted from defeat to defeat, moderating their approach to avoid a repeat of the 6-3 defeat to Liverpool, every defeat written off as unavoidable, their competitive edge increasingly blunted. That culminated on Sunday at Goodison Park, where Spurs were demolished in the first half by an Everton team who had been drained of all confidence in front of goal in recent years. Everyone reading this will be familiar with the concept of Dr Tottenham, but this was surely the greatest example in history. All of the belief, skill and conviction that Everton had lost surged back into their game. This was football alchemy at work.
At half-time, with Spurs 3-0 down, it felt like the trip to Newcastle United in April 2023. It had that same morbid end-of-era energy, the same glazed eyes and dazed players, the same dark humour from fans. That day, Spurs were 5-0 down at the break, after a desperate tactical switch by the manager. Spurs lost 6-1 and Cristian Stellini was removed as caretaker the next day. This time, at least, Spurs’ second-half fightback gave the scoreline (3-2) a degree of respectability no one would have predicted at the break.
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But at least that day at Newcastle, there was an acceptance that it was a nadir, and things needed to change. Tottenham must now find another fix to avoid spending the rest of the season glancing anxiously into their rear-view mirror at Wolverhampton Wanderers and Ipswich Town.
It is easy to blame the manager, but he is far from the only one at fault. Daniel Levy spent the afternoon listening to Spurs fans calling for his departure from the club. When the fans turn the heat on the chairman, the manager often pays the price — but if Levy sacked Ange Postecoglou, the attention would still be on the chairman rather than the sacked head coach. Levy has to find a way to fix this.
Tottenham need to go into the market now and give Postecoglou some more players. Dominic Solanke’s knee injury and Brennan Johnson’s calf strain have further damaged their already thin squad. Their only attacking player in any sort of form is Dejan Kulusevski, but he has done so much this season he needs to be helped and protected rather than asked to do even more. Richarlison and Mikey Moore both came on against Everton but Spurs cannot try to squeeze too much out of them too soon.
In defence, again, Spurs clearly need another player. They cannot just sit on their hands and wait for Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven to come back and save their season. Radu Dragusin and Archie Gray have done everything asked of them recently but both struggled at Goodison. Dragusin looks like he needs a spell out of the team.
Postecoglou started this season with a thin squad and now he has 11 senior players out. The calendar is not giving him any respite. Without at least two new players, it is hard to see how this situation does not get even worse from here.
Perhaps this is where there needs to be a change of emphasis. For too long, the cups were seen as the way for Spurs to save their season but who could claim now, with a straight face, that Tottenham are going to win a trophy? If they show up to Anfield and play like this in the Carabao semi-final second leg, they will lose by a cricket score. When they go to Villa Park three days later they will find it very difficult to stay in the FA Cup too. They could be out of both domestic cups within a few weeks.
The Europa League is a different prospect, but this Thursday’s game at Hoffenheim will be a struggle given Spurs’ injuries. If they do not finish in the top eight of the league phase, and end up in the play-off round in February, then there is every chance they will go out of that too. And then their whole season will be over within a month.
If that sounds like a grim prognosis, it is the only conclusion to reach after watching this, Spurs’ 12th and worst league defeat of the season and a game that should have ended even worse than it did. This is a Spurs team in the midst of a football disaster. They need to stop dreaming about being saved by returning players. They need to stop fantasising about cup competitions where they will likely lose. Someone needs to take control of the situation and keep this ship afloat. No one is going to do it for them.
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(Top photo: Ange Postecoglou and Archie Gray, who scored an own goal; by Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)