Hotspur HQ

God, how sweet those three weeks were when Tottenham Hotspur Football Club wasn't ruining everything.

The Lilywhites were back with a vengeance at the weekend, this time with their third different manager of a terrible 2025/26 season, but it wasn't merely a flat Roberto De Zerbi debut that encouraged the idea of the 2019 Champions League finalists and 2025 Europa League winners succumbing to the second tier.

Plenty of supporters have borderline accepted a cataclysmic fate. I've long believed, despite our historically awful run, that we'd somehow find a way to preserve our Premier League status.

Now, though, I think Spurs are done. The number-crunchers agree, too.

Supercomputer predicts Premier League relegation fight

It's worth noting that when Thomas Frank was sacked by the club in February, Tottenham's chances of going down were remote, no more than a few percent.

However, after Igor Tudor's winless 44-day reign and De Zerbi's debut defeat, Spurs have slipped into the bottom three for the first time since the opening weekend of the 2015/16 season.

According to Opta's simulations, Spurs are the most likely team to join Wolves and Burnley in the Championship next season. After a bad, bad weekend, our relegation chances have been boosted to 49.5%.

West Ham had long been the favourite to finish 18th and spend next season (at least) in the second tier, but Nuno Espírito Santo has found a way to embolden the Hammers and render them more than merely competitive. They battered an improving Wolves 4-0 on Friday night to usurp Spurs and ensure the Lilywhites kicked off at the Stadium of Light in the relegation zone.

Admittedly, I thought Leeds United were our best bet of staying in the division. Daniel Farke's side were excellent over Christmas, but haven't won a league game since February and have struggled mightily in front of goal as of late.

Few expected them to claim their first league victory at Old Trafford in 45 years on Monday night, but that's exactly what they did. Leeds are now six points better off than us, with their chances of going down reduced to 1.61%. Home games against the bottom two are on the horizon.

West Ham's run-in is the toughest, while Nottingham Forest haven't pulled away just yet. However, it's absolutely imperative that we beat De Zerbi's former employers, the in-form Brighton & Hove Albion next week, otherwise we could be cut adrift.

Next week, the Hammers visit Crystal Palace off the back of a trip to Florence, while Forest are at home to a Burnley team that's won one league game since October.

It's not looking good...

Tottenham Hotspur are officially in the Premier League relegation zone after their latest shutout loss, but even though they won the Europa League last season, the reality is that Spurs have been terrible for more than just the 2025/26 season.

There are more than just three player who fit this description, but here are three men on Tottenham who have been dreary for two seasons in a row now.

CM Rodrigo Bentancur

Tottenham have not missed Rodrigo Bentancur one bit since his injury, and, in truth, Archie Gray had usurped the Uruguayan as a starting midfielder even under Thomas Frank, who almost seemed to be allergic to starting young players.

While Bentancur did come from a big club in Juventus, there is a reason why Juve were so keen on selling him. Bentancur is a very average player on the ball and in defense. He does not win possession much, his creativity is subpar, and he often plays cowardly and goes missing in the big games.

CB Radu Dragusin

There isn't much of a need to harp on Radu Dragusin, because every Tottenham Hotspur fan can plainly see that he is not good enough for this club. Dragusin is one of the worst center backs in the Premier League, and you could make a strong case for him being Spurs least talented player since he joined the club in 2024/25. But you know what? At least he tries.

CB Micky van de Ven

Dominic Solanke could have easily made it on this list, as he has been poor lately and had only nine goals and a couple of assists in 25 starts last Premier League campaign, but at least he turned it up in the Europa League. Fellow striker Richarlison has also been poor, but at least he has been a source of goals this season, and when he was healthy last season, he was scoring, too.

But more people need to be talking about how dreadful Micky van de Ven has been playing these past two seasons. Honestly, when you dig into the numbers deeper, he was quite bad last season, too. He had 0.8 tackles and 0.8 interceptions per game with 0.5 dribbles completed allowed in 2024/25. That's a terrible ratio of ball winning to getting beat one on one. He looks great in highlight clips with his speed and passing accuracy, but his actual defensive quality and instincts are atrocious. And now, he's just getting exposed for being overrated - part of it is on us for overhyping him.

It was more of the same for Tottenham Hotspur under their third manager in a dire 2025/26 season, with the opening 15 minutes at the Stadium of Light proving to be no more than a false dawn for the Lilywhites.

Roberto De Zerbi made his eagerly anticipated managerial bow for the club on Sunday, with intrigue surrounding his debut piquing as his first Spurs XI was disclosed.

Much of the team picked itself due to injuries, but De Zerbi also made a couple of calls that looked questionable on paper, and ultimately proved to be erroneous.

His exclusions of Xavi Simons and Mathys Tel from his team were a surprise, given what he'd said in the build-up to his first game, and Sunday's outing should've shown that these two need to be at the forefront of our survival bid.

Tel and Simons must play leading roles for Tottenham amid relegation scrap

Neither player was particularly impactful when they entered proceedings at the Stadium of Light, but that's besides the point.

Tel entered the fray right after Nordi Mukiele's opener, with the game's already stodgy rhythm disrupted further by the collision caused by a Brian Brobbey push on Cristian Romero. Tottenham's captain, who clattered into the onrushing Antonín Kinsky, will miss the remainder of the season with a partial tear of his MCL.

De Zerbi said Simons would've come on earlier then he eventually did (84th minute for the woeful Conor Gallagher), but Romero's enforced substitution altered his plans.

The rationale behind De Zerbi's selected front four seemed to be predicated on playing over Sunderland's press and releasing the speedy Randal Kolo Muani in behind. However, Spurs, after a couple of early successful sequences, struggled to play through or over the Black Cats. The technical limitations of Richarlison, in particular, thwarted our ability to get up the pitch, while Dominic Solanke simply didn't offer enough as a focal point.

Tel is raw and imperfect, but I would've much preferred him to have been on the receiving end of the two promising openings Richarlison squandered in both halves. Still, I could at least understand why De Zerbi opted for Richy.

The more confusing decision was the deployment of Lucas Bergvall as the most advanced midfielder. Thomas Frank tried this, and we never saw the best of the young Swede. Bergvall is far more effective when he's able to carry the ball from deep, with his courage and bravery in possession under-utilised by De Zerbi's predecessors.

He doesn't look comfortable receiving ahead of the ball, and merely using him to run around and win second balls seems to be a waste of his talents. While De Zerbi is offering a lite version of his complex principles at this early juncture, it seems bizarre for Tottenham's most creative player not to be on the pitch as much as possible.

Without Simons, Spurs seldom seem like prising any defence open. The Dutchman hasn't yet settled into Premier League life, but he's caught fire in Europe and was at the forefront of our two most impressive performances of 2026 (vs. Manchester City and Atlético Madrid).

Tottenham Hotspur are the laughingstock of the Premier League right now. Spurs supporters are feeling what Schalke, Hertha Berlin, Bordeaux, Hamburg, Saint Etienne, and so many other fan bases around Europe have felt when their giant clubs started teetering on the brink after years of mismanagement. Nobody in the building listened to their frustrations, and now the Tottenham faithful are the ones meant to pay.

After losing 1-0 to Sunderland over the Premier League weekend while West Ham United trounced Wolves in their relegation six pointer, the Lilywhites sit in the bottom three and, at this point, look like they are "comfortably" headed straight to the bottom.

There is no pundit in England who does a better job of telling it like it is, and if he ruffles feathers, then that is because the people listening to him are not ready to confront the reality. Tottenham Hotspur fans, however, have been confronting their own club's incompetence for years, so Jamie Carragher's honest, scathing critique of the Lilywhites will not come as an offense.

Tottenham's winless streak is staggering

The former Liverpool defender said on Sky Sports, "No club in the Premier League should be going without a win for this long, it's not acceptable."

Carragher acknowledged that, yes, Tottenham have had a lot of injuries, but his assessment, obvious as it may be, was absolutely spot on. Spurs are not showing enough fight, and for the stature of this club and for the players that they do have who have been healthy for most of this season, the results they are turning in are beyond appalling. Finally, Carragher made the assertion that it's clearly not an issue of coaching and that there is a deeper problem, seeing as how Spurs have been cycling through managers with no change in results.

Roberto De Zerbi definitely has his work cut out for him, that's for sure, but it really is insane to think that Tottenham, one of the Big Six clubs of the Premier League and one of the 10 biggest in terms of revenue in the world, have not won a single league game since Dec. 28 when they barely eeked a 1-0 out of Crystal Palace.

In the entire calendar year, in three and a half months of matches, Spurs cannot get a single win despite having their backs to the wall and now three coaches in that period of time. Winless in their last 14 Premier League fixtures, Spurs look exactly like a team that deserves to go down.

The hope that Roberto De Zerbi could immediately offer a boost to Tottenham Hotspur and shake things up positively enough in his managerial debut that Spurs would be able to finally get a win in the Premier League were met with a harsh reality. This Spurs team looks like one that is doomed to relegation.

In the morning after the game, The Athletic's Nick Miller summed up the situation Spurs are in from a national perspective, and it really sinks in just how dire things are:

"The basic facts tell you that there is still everything to play for in the Premier League relegation race. Three points separate four teams, with Tottenham currently occupying 18th place and Leeds yet to play this weekend. West Ham and Nottingham Forest are between those two, so with six more rounds to go, in theory, it’s shaping up to be a thoroughly entertaining scrap for survival. But then you watch the games, and you start to feel much less optimistic about Tottenham’s chances of staying up."

Tottenham look like the underdogs

Everything that could have possibly went wrong ended up going wrong. Spurs played horrendously and didn't look for a moment like they would score. So many calls ended up going against them yet again, including a despicable Brian Brobbey challenge that led to Cristian Romero joining Mohammed Kudus (and others) with a season ending injury.

Although you would normally back Tottenham with De Zerbi coaching and the players that they have to stay up when the competition is West Ham, Wolves, Burnley, and Nottingham Forest, Spurs, right now, look like the worst team of the lot.

At this point, as Miller's comments allude to, Tottenham Hotspur are starting to look, if anything, like the underdogs in the relegation fight. Whereas West Ham United are knocking down Wolves 4-0, Spurs lost 3-0 to Nottingham Forest before the March international break and were as putrid offensively in Roberto De Zerbi's first game managing the club vs. Sunderland as they were under Igor Tudor or Thomas Frank.

Now, Spurs can only go up from here with De Zerbi coaching them, and James Maddison may still be on his way back from injury. But there are no other saviors. Mohammed Kudus is done. Cristian Romero is now gone. And unless if Spurs can dramatically improve - not just improve marginally - from where they are now, then the Lilywhites can kiss the Premier League farewell.

Although Roberto De Zerbi has been in the Premier League before as a manager after a successful spell at Brighton that ended in another implosion behind the scenes, it is still valid to call his first match in charge of Tottenham Hotspur a rude awakening of sorts.

Spurs hired De Zerbi to turn around a club floundering in the relegation battle, and after Sunday's 1-0 loss to Sunderland, the Lilywhites find themselves officially in the relegation zone now, failing to respond to West Ham United's scintillating 4-0 win over Wolves.

De Zerbi has to be getting some serious stick from Spurs supporters, because even though it was only his first game and an adjustment period is needed, the club looked no better than how they did under Igor Tudor before him. Worse yet, the personnel decisions De Zerbi made were shocking.

Randal Kolo Muani was not so good after all

In particular, De Zerbi entrusted Conor Gallagher and Randal Kolo Muani with starts against Sunderland when there were a couple of much better options like Mathys Tel and Xavi Simons (among other switches he could have made).

Before the match against Sunderland, Roberto De Zerbi had praised Gallagher to the surprise of many fans, and he also had some kind words to say about Kolo Muani, even though he did actually admit that the striker is not having a good season by any means.

Perhaps it was hubris and De Zerbi wanted to prove that he is right about these guys being good footballers or perhaps he genuinely thought he could get the most out of him in his first game in charge, but whatever it was, both Conor Gallagher and Randal Kolo Muani were horrendous against the Black Cats this past weekend.

Now, they were far from the only culprits in the shutout loss, but they were both at the bottom of the barrel. Gallagher did what he has done all half season long for Spurs since coming from Atletico Madrid in January. He was overrun in midfield, did not provide any of the ball winning or progression that was advertised, and was a huge creative black hole, especially in comparison to the player who should have started for him in Xavi Simons.

Meanwhile, Kolo Muani was part of a clown show trio of strikers, and he only doesn't get even more stick because Dominic Solanke was somehow miles worse. De Zerbi entrusted these two players against basic logic to start, and it blew up in his face. He may not be as willing to give them a chance next weekend when he tries to exact some revenge on Brighton.

Tottenham Hotspur are officially in the relegation zone. After watching West Ham United dust Wolves 4-0 on Friday night, Spurs responded to their London rivals by putting together another offensive disaster class against a stingy Sunderland defense, failing to take any advantage of Dan Ballard's injury in Roberto De Zerbi's managerial debut for a Premier League Big Six club.

De Zerbi obviously has a lot of work cut out for him, and he is not even one of the top five biggest problems, at least in a footballing sense, at Spurs right now. Spurs were terrible before De Zerbi, and they will, logically, most likely continue to stink for the remainder of the season.

But De Zerbi was hired for a lot of money immediately to help Spurs stink less - and at least mitigate the rotten stench of a decaying organization enough to survive relegation. He didn't help himself, though, with the decisions he made both during and before his first match as Tottenham manager against Premier League returnees Sunderland in this 1-0 loss.

Mathys Tel and Xavi Simons snubbed already

It was baffling to see Xavi Simons and Mathys Tel sitting on the bench, only coming on in the second half as substitutes. Roberto De Zerbi attempted to justify the Simons snub in the press conference after the loss, but all of his fumbling fell on unreceptive ears.

Spurs supporters had seen Thomas Frank embarrass himself by leaving off his most dynamic attacking players, as Tottenham are a much worse team without these two. De Zerbi snubbing Tel was particularly bizarre, considering he had just spent the pre game press conference time telling everyone that he liked the Frenchman enough to try to sign him for Marseille.

Alongside Archie Gray, Mathys Tel had been Tottenham's best player over the last few weeks and the only real source of attacking threat. With the only other true winger in the squad actually out injured for the rest of the season in Mohammed Kudus, you would have thought that De Zerbi would have written Tel's name in permanent marker as a starter.

Instead, he rolled with three strikers. And all of Richarlison, Randal Kolo Muani, and Dominic Solanke were predictably poor and even worse together. It was the sort of managerial blunder that you, again, would have thought that De Zerbi would have learned from by watching Frank's mistakes before him.

Although Roberto De Zerbi can pull a Thomas Frank lite and tell the press that Tottenham Hotspur deserved to win after a clearly inferior display in which he set the team up to fail with woeful personnel decisions, every Spurs fan saw that the team, as a whole, just wasn't good enough. Not even close.

It doesn't matter who is coaching Tottenham, there are serious issues in the squad, and it will take De Zerbi more than one or two games to fix all these issues. And there is still a lot for him to learn about the squad.

As terrible as the 1-0 loss to Sunderland was, there was one important positive that Spurs need to take with them going forward as a team. It was the performance of an individual, yes, but young goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky's bounce back display in his first game since that debacle at Atletico Madrid in the Champions League was a rare heartwarming moment in a season filled with turmoil.

Antonin Kinsky delivered under pressure

Kinsky was the best player on the pitch for Tottenham. Now, it is never a good sign when a goalkeeper is a team's best player in a game that they lost, but Kinsky was solid in goal and commanded his defense well. He did not waver on crosses or on the ball, and he avoided making any mistakes, which is important for a Spurs side that has burned themselves in so many games with terrible individual errors at the back.

He showed real toughness, too, getting injured by a wild Brian Brobbey, whose antics of absolute insanity should have been punished. Antonin Kinsky looked every bit the young, rising goalkeeper Tottenham Hotspur fans had him tabbed for, and he washed away a lot of the stain of the Atletico Madrid performance, which was the worst possible mix of pressure, rust, and rotten luck on a notoriously slippery pitch.

Kinsky did not slip against Sunderland, and though Tottenham were, once again, second best on this day, Kinsky's courageous outing has to be a point of inspiration for his teammates. With Guglielmo Vicario out recovering from finally getting hernia surgery, Kinsky looked every bit like the Tottenham No. 1, stepping in and delivering a match that was legitimately better than anything we have seen from Vicario in several weeks. But there is more to this story than just Kinsky challenging Vicario as the starter or getting more cred before the season ends and the transfer window begins.

Tottenham need a rallying point, and Kinsky just gave his teammates something real for them to look at and lift them. In the face of adversity and insane levels of criticism, Kinsky rose to the occasion, And it was wasted. Spurs players need to look at what this young man did and raise their games amidst the pressure just as he did - and to not waste the heroic performances of their teammates who are rising. The tide must bring all the ships to a higher level together.

Clearly, it is going to take new manager Roberto De Zerbi time in order to get Tottenham Hotspur to play respectable football again, because the swashbuckling style De Zerbi hinted at going back to from the Ange Postecoglou days was nowhere near on display this Sunday.

Instead, Tottenham looked like they could not have scored even if they were given a full 12 hours on the pitch, falling 1-0 to Sunderland just days after West Ham United's win over Wolves put them in the bottom three of the Premier League.

There were a number of terrible individual performances, naturally, but it is truly jarring to see how awful Conor Gallagher continues to be. De Zerbi appears to be a big fan of the former Chelsea and Crystal Palace man, handing him a start in his first game as manager despite having the clearly superior Xavi Simons on the table as an option.

Conor Gallagher was horrible again

Gallagher got completely overrun again in the midfield. It is appalling how little threat he offers on the ball, and, somehow, his lack of creativity is an even bigger problem than Spurs supporters expected. As the only experienced signing Tottenham Hotspur made in the winter transfer window, Gallagher's signing looks worse and worse by the week, a classic case of subtraction by addition. His wages have broken the wage structure, and Spurs paid 10 million euros more than Aston Villa would have to sign him from Atletico Madrid.

That all gives Gallagher a compelling case for being an all time bad signing, but he has some pretty stiff competition within his own squad. Because summer 2024 signing Dominic Solanke is actually the most expensive signing in Tottenham history at 65 million pounds

Although Solanke won the Europa League last season and had some key contributions, nobody can look at his overall body of work and lack of goals as the starting No. 9 after Harry Kane and think that he was anywhere near 65 million pounds. This season, he spent more than half the campaign injured, came back and was great for three games, and now he has literally been the worst player for Tottenham this last month or two in the thick of the relegation fight.

Richarlison may be a contender, but at least he tries. And at least he has been scoring goals this season. Dominic Solanke was more expensive and is neither scoring goals nor putting in the intensity required in a relegation fight.

That Tottenham have invested so much in two players who are so consistently failing them when they need the most is an indictment of their recruitment and the sorts of players they are going for. They are spending big on the wrong players, and it is holding back the actual decent young players with upside in the process.

In Roberto De Zerbi's first game in charge of Tottenham Hotspur, he did absolutely nothing to make Spurs supporters think that there is any hope of the club getting out of this predicament. Whereas rivals West Ham United took care of business on Friday night with a 4-0 drubbing of last splaced Wolves, Spurs looked like they could never even come close to scoring in a 1-0 loss to Sunderland.

Yes, the refereeing was beyond atrocious yet again, but, well, Spurs were even worse. And these five players deserve a whole lot of blame for what transpired on Sunday as Tottenham remain in the three relegation places in the Premier League - and look like a team that 100 percent deserves to go down.

ST Dominic Solanke

Dominic Solanke was beyond horrendous on Sunday against Sunderland, and it is wild to think that he is the club's record signing when he can scarcely even get on the ball or create a sense of danger for Spurs against a mid table Premier League side. Solanke looks like he genuinely cannot be bothered in a relegation fight, as his performances are inexplicably getting worse and worse.

CM Lucas Bergvall

Although Lucas Bergvall is a bright spot for Tottenham and someone who should blossom under Roberto De Zerbi in the long term, he's been quite poor since coming back from another lengthy spell on the sidelines with injury. He will get better, but he made zero impact vs. the Black Cats.

CB Micky van de Ven

Micky van de Ven has been the most disappointing star player these last couple of months as Tottenham Hotspur have slid further into the relegation abyss. The Dutchman was partially at fault for Sunderland's goal, but it was his overall performance that was most concerning. Van de Ven isn't winning the ball for his team, he isn't leading by example, and the quality he should be having on the ball is totally invisible.

CM Conor Gallagher

Perhaps the worst signing in Tottenham history. It is baffling how De Zerbi looked at what Gallagher has done not just for Tottenham this season, but even for Atletico Madrid before that, and thought that the overpaid Englishman is exactly what was needed in the starting XI. Gallagher might be the worst midfielder in the entire Premier League right now.

ST Randal Kolo Muani

Randal Kolo Muani is done in the Premier League. Like Gallagher, De Zerbi seems to be a fan of Kolo Muani's, but he just realized why Tottenham fans and even Igor Tudor wanted little to do with him. He doesn't care about the club, he is ready to leave, and if Spurs are relegated, Kolo Muani could not be bothered one bit. And he plays like it every single week.