Football365

Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher reckons Tottenham “look like they’re going to go down” to the Championship after a 1-0 defeat to Sunderland.

Nordi Mukiele’s 61st-minute goal gave the hosts all three points as Tottenham lost their first match under new head coach Roberto De Zerbi.

Tottenham are now in the Premier League relegation zone with just six matches left to play and two points adrift of West Ham, who occupy the place above them.

And Carragher thinks Tottenham now look Championship-bound as he can’t see where Spurs are going to get their next points from.

Carragher said on Sky Sports: “I can’t believe it. Tottenham look like they’re going to go down. The other [relegation threatened] teams have something going for them.”

On playing Wolves in a couple of weeks, Carragher added: “You look at fixtures, you think that’s a good game for Tottenham. But they’re awful. Tottenham’s a good game for them.

READ: Spurs doomed to relegation not by absence of new-manager bounce but fact this was it

“Wolves are bottom of the league. Do you think Tottenham will go there, and win? No chance.”

Gary Neville admits Spurs are in “massive trouble” but is tipping Tottenham to survive as they will “just get out of it”.

Speaking about the relegation battle, Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast: “It’s as interesting as the title race.

“The Spurs question – can they go down? Will they go down? Is this the biggest club that’s ever gone down in Premier League history?

“Aston Villa are a massive club, but Tottenham have been in Champions League finals in the last five, six, seven years, and won the Europa League last year, this would be a monstrous moment.

“Some say it would be good for the game because it would demonstrate competitiveness, that anybody can go down in the Premier League, just as when Leicester won it. It was the most phenomenal story that anybody can win the Premier League.

“I actually like what De Zerbi did today on paper, putting Kolo Muani, Solanke and Richarlison up front as a three-pronged attack. It didn’t have great balance but I thought that they would potentially cause more problems.

“They’ve lost at Sunderland and they’ve got big matches to come. The unthinkable could happen.

“I think they’ll just get out of it, but I’ve got no confidence to sit here and say Tottenham are safe right now.

MORE TOTTENHAM COVERAGE ON F365…

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“Everyone knows they’re in massive trouble and it’s the unthinkable.”

Jamie O’Hara predictably went in on Tottenham after their defeat to Sunderland and claimed the current players “are nowhere near it”.

O’Hara said: “Absolutely shocking. Spurs didn’t deserve anything from the game. It sums up Spurs this season. They did absolutely nothing, offered nothing.

“Non-existent performances all over the park. Connor Gallagher, shocking. Randal Kolo Muani, shocking. Dominic Solanke, shocking. Richarlison, shocking. Destiny Udogie, shocking.

“You can’t carry six players when you are fighting relegation! You have to fight and put in a performance.

“Absolutely woeful again. I can’t believe how bad this team have got. De Zerbi is a good manager but he can’t produce miracles; the players have to produce for him.

“Nowhere near good enough. The quality on the pitch is non-existent. These players have fallen so far off from where they think they are as footballers.

“I am not seeing anything from this team that warrants staying in the Premier League. There is nothing that says they can stay up. There isn’t enough fight, quality or passion.

“For the majority of the game, I couldn’t believe what I was watching. These players are nowhere near it.”

Spurs are gone. The last plausible chance of avoiding the most ignominious relegation in Premier League history rested with a new-manager bounce under Roberto De Zerbi and emerging with something from the Stadium of Light.

They leave Sunderland with nothing except another compelling reminder of just how many villains this story contains.

It will not, quite obviously, be De Zerbi’s fault when this wretched team is deservedly and decisively relegated. It will not really be Igor Tudor’s. It will be Thomas Frank’s quite a bit, but not entirely and probably not even mainly.

It will not even be entirely on this current crop of inadequate players, several of whom are, bless them, absolutely trying their very best.

It’s just that their very best is really quite sh*t.

Spurs will be relegated this season and deservedly so. But the chief architects are not on the pitch or in the dugout but in the padded executive seats. Daniel Levy’s mistakes have been compounded and doubled down upon by inadequate successors who can’t even point to his accomplishments. And there were many.

But 10 years of letting the playing squad drift and now, finally, rot and decay has caught up with Spurs. And almost all of that was on his watch.

His claim that he would only be appreciated after he had gone has come alarmingly true. And it’s probably the case that had Levy still been in position Spurs would not be going down this season at least.

He would not have allowed Frank to tank the team quite so hard and for quite so long. It was obvious in November that he was done for, and had Spurs moved then for De Zerbi or someone of similar ilk, then the very deepest cuts of this catastrophe would probably have been averted.

But probably only postponed, really. This has been coming. The sheer extent to which Harry Kane was keeping this team upright has become startlingly clear with Spurs’ collapse and his success at Bayern Munich.

“Keeping Spurs out of relegation trouble” isn’t quite as Ballon d’Or attention-grabbing, it turns out, as “Propelling Bayern to the Champions League” but it was no less an achievement.

Since he left, Spurs have had a wild (and on more than one occasion wildly fortunate) 10-game start under Ange Postecoglou in which all things seemed possible. But since then the all things have been, in the Premier League at least, almost exclusively sh*te. They were a mid-table team at best for the rest of that season. A team that should have been in relegation trouble in his second season. And one now doomed to that fate in the third post-Kane campaign.

The Europa League win, magnificent and cathartic as it was, cannot mask the wider, deeper failings of everyone involved from top to bottom. Especially as it seems more and more to have been accompanied by a Spurs fan somewhere out there holding a monkey’s paw.

The chronic lack of or misdirected investment in the playing squad needs studying. Spurs were, somehow, blessed with the outrageous good fortune to have the best striker in the world fall into their lap from their own academy, and another of the world’s best forwards arrive for a bargain price and inexplicably fall hopelessly in love with this stupid club and spend the best 10 years of his career here.

What did Spurs do with that outlandish good fortune? Absolutely f*ck all. Squandered. P*ssed up the wall.

And now the consequences of that are hitting home incredibly hard.

This defeat, in its own way, felt somehow even worse than the fearful hammering from supposed relegation rivals Nottingham Forest three weeks ago. That could almost be dismissed as a freakish outlier even in Spurs’ season of despair.

This defeat – a much closer, narrower one in a far tougher fixture – cannot. The most damning thing about this defeat is that for an hour Spurs were okay. Marginally the better side, even. Sunderland weren’t quite at it, and Spurs definitely were.

It’s not even hard to imagine a universe where Spurs did in fact win this game, and that’s not something that can be said about many of their games. There exists, for instance, a universe where Richarlison attempts a shot rather than a backpass with any one of three presentable chances. Or where Brian Brobbey doesn’t get away with quite so many yellow-card offences. Or where the collective response to an opposition goal on 60 minutes isn’t “Well… that’s that, then”.

But this is not that universe, and it isn’t going to become that universe. The terrifying thing for Spurs isn’t that they didn’t get a new-manager bounce, but that they did. This was it. And it wasn’t anything like enough.

They played adequately well for an hour in a scrappy game. It was better than anything they’ve served up in the Premier League this year. But it was nowhere near better enough.

And the response to conceding precisely the sort of goal doomed teams concede – a cruel deflection leaving the blameless Antonin Kinsky an agonised spectator as Nordi Mukiele’s speculative shot spun and arced and bounced into the net – tells us everything we, in truth, already knew about this Spurs team.

They don’t have the minerals.

There was still a third of the game left when Sunderland scored, but everyone knew that the game was over. Sure, Sunderland don’t lose when they score first and Spurs certainly don’t win when they concede first, but you’d expect what remains for now a Premier League team to at least look like they thought the idea of getting something out of a game you’re losing 1-0 with half an hour still to play wasn’t entirely absurd.

This Spurs team can win games. But to do so they need the entire game to go pretty much flawlessly.

They cannot react to any kind of setback, and setbacks are baked in to football even when you aren’t alarmingly bad. There simply isn’t time left for Spurs to have the multiple perfect days they require.

Spurs really are a heady, unstoppable combination of powerfully sh*t and undeniably unfortunate. They do seem to invite setbacks. The goal, obviously. And the neverending injury crisis continued with Cristian Romero leaving the field in tears – we’re assuming, perhaps unfairly, over doubts about his own World Cup hopes rather than any real concern for the fate of his soon-to-be former club – after being shoved into Kinsky by Brobbey.

Even when Spurs appear to get a bit of luck, it kicks them in the arse. They were – absurdly – awarded a penalty in the first half here. When VAR inevitably and uncontroversially overturned it, the corner Spurs should have had in the first place went the same way as the penalty that should have never been.

A small thing, sure, but the small things feel so much bigger when you’re this bad and need every tiny bit of help you can get. Which is the key to it all: the misfortune is real, but let’s not pretend it is anywhere close to being as important as the sh*tness.

And the good news does just keep coming for Spurs fans: when you’re in the Championship next season, you can also look forward to a great many more co-commentaries from Don ‘Duty of Care’ Goodman.

New Tottenham manager Roberto De Zerbi is “sorry” to the players he is coaching, and feels they need him to be a “father” to help them through the next six games.

Spurs were in danger prior to the 32nd Premier League game week, and that danger has now increased markedly. They began the week a point above West Ham, who occupied the final relegation spot.

The Hammers absolutely walloped bottom-side Wolves, 4-0, to leapfrog Tottenham, who had a chance to go back ahead of the Hammers with a win of their own in manager De Zerbi‘s first match in charge.

But they were unable to return a positive result, losing 1-0 to Sunderland, who scored in the 61st minute and hung on for the rest of the game, in which there were 11 added minutes that Spurs failed to do an awful lot with.

De Zerbi has not been dealt a great hand, being the third manager this season of a club whose players look devoid of ideas.

READ: Roy Keane tells Tottenham they’ll be ‘in the Championship’ next season

It’s not his fault they’re in trouble and he is sympathetic to them, suggesting they need support, rather than coaching, to deal with the next six games.

De Zerbi told Match of the Day: “Sorry because we didn’t deserve to lose the game. We played a good game, maybe not enough to win but we were unlucky in a few situations in the first half.

“I cannot say anything to players because they gave their best in terms of attitude and spirit. We can play better for sure and you can feel better. We have to work on that. My work is not so much on the pitch because they are good guys and I am sorry for them. I want to give them confidence in what they need.

READ: Tottenham made ambitious move for manager far too successful for them before De Zerbi

“Tactically, we played a good first half. With the ball and without the ball. We don’t have confidence to play great football but we did what we have been working on this week. The players can play better if they are feeling confident.”

I can be a big brother, father, they don’t need a coach. They don’t need to improve football. They can play better and they will play better once we reach a different level of confidence.”

De Zerbi feels IF he can lead his side to victory once in the remaining games, more will follow.

He said: “Absolutely, I’m sure if we are able to win a game then everything will change.”

Former top-flight attacker Pat Nevin feels Tottenham are in “seriously deep” towards the bottom of the Premier League table, and relegation is “staring at you.”

There is no secret that Spurs are in danger. At the beginning of this week, it was hanging over them, with the north London club just one point above the Premier League relegation places.

But after West Ham thumped Wolves in convincing fashion, and Tottenham lost 1-0 to Sunderland, the danger is all the more real, with six games left and Tottenham two points from safety.

Now onto their third manager of the season, it’s been evident that things are not right in north London for some time, but Nevin feels that’s been hammered home now.

He said on BBC Radio 5 Live: “Spurs are in deep. Seriously deep. For all of the effort today they made very, very few real chances in this game.

“Now they are officially in the relegation zone, people are taking it seriously. It’s been serious for much longer than that. It’s been sitting staring at you.

“We’ve seen teams in the past start to fall and they have faltered, they have started to lack belief. There was no lack of effort from the Spurs players today, but was there a desperation about the desire? I’m not sure there was.

READ: How many players have scored 20 goals in a Premier League season?

“It’s not like they didn’t try today, but was that the desperation level that they need? I’m afraid not. Nothing feels easy. Nothing feels certain. I don’t know where the points are coming from.”

Indeed, Tottenham had less shots than their opponents and not many of their chances were the most convincing, though they did have six shots on target.

There was visible emotion from some of the players during and after the game, suggesting they understand just how grave things are now.

READ: Liverpool icon ‘verbally agrees’ next move with ‘all terms in place’ – Fabrizio Romano

Of the six games remaining this term, Spurs are yet to play rivals Chelsea, fourth-placed Aston Villa, and two more top-10 clubs in Brighton and Everton.

The trip to Wolves in two games’ time is an absolute must-win, especially seeing what West Ham did to them.

If the result of that game is not a positive one for Tottenham, they might be as good as down. It would have seemed crazy at the beginning of the campaign to suggest Spurs could be relegated from the Premier League, but as the weeks go by, it looks more and more likely, and there’s not much currently to suggest they’ll escape.

Andy Robertson has struck a verbal agreement to sign for Tottenham in the summer, though there’s a very clear reason why that might not matter.

Liverpool announced on Thursday that Andy Robertson would leave the club once his contract expires at season’s end.

The Scot, 32, will go down as one of Liverpool’s greatest ever full-backs, and certainly their best ever left-back in the Premier League era.

Nevertheless, it’s since emerged the Reds didn’t even make a single attempt to extend Robertson’s stay. Explaining why, reporter, Ben Jacobs revealed Robertson – who was quickly displaced in the starting eleven by Milos Kerkez this year – still believes he should be a regular starter.

With Liverpool believing in Kerkez and thus unable to satisfy Robertson’s demand, an amicable split was deemed the most suitable outcome for all involved.

Robertson came close to joining Tottenham in January, only to see the move crumble when Liverpool failed to engineer Kostas Tsimikas’ early return from a dismal loan spell at Roma.

However, David Ornstein recently confirmed Spurs are back in for the veteran left-back, and are the clear frontrunners to secure a free transfer.

And according to the latest from transfer guru, Fabrizio Romano, Robertson and Spurs have now verbally agreed terms that’ll see the Scot arrive in north London this summer.

“Tottenham have a verbal agreement to sign Andy Robertson in June 2026, all terms in place,” declared Romano on X.

Nevertheless, the story doesn’t end there, with Ornstein and now Romano both insisting the move hinges on Tottenham avoiding relegation.

“Nothing signed/sealed yet as staying in Premier League will be a key factor ahead of proceeding,” added Romano.

“Robertson, ready to pick #THFC project if relegation battle has positive outcome.”

DON’T MISS: The final Premier League table to push every manager to the exit

As such, all eyes are now on Roberto De Zerbi and whether he can make an instant impact at Tottenham.

His reign is off to poor start through no fault of his own, with relegation rivals, West Ham, thumping Wolves 4-0 on Friday night.

That victory jettisoned the Hammers out of the drop zone at the expense of Tottenham. For the first time all season, Spurs are now in the relegation zone.

In the event Tottenham do drop down a division, it’s also been established De Zerbi WILL remain in charge in the Championship.

However, if Tottenham do fail to retain their Premier League status, De Zerbi’s promotion push next season will not be aided by Robertson who’ll have ignored his verbal agreement and signed elsewhere.

Insider Miguel Delaney has revealed the pair of Premier League managers Tottenham tried before Roberto De Zerbi – one who’s far too successful to have said yes to them.

Spurs have burned through two managers already this season. After seeing the back of Ange Postecoglou in the summer, they hired Thomas Frank, who lasted just a few months when his struggles were ended and he was replaced by Igor Tudor.

His spell was only a few games long, and it’s now Roberto De Zerbi’s turn in the hot seat. He’s been given the difficult task of engineering Premier League survival, with Tottenham just one point above the drop zone.

De Zerbi was clearly very high on Spurs’ list of managers, as Delaney reports for the Independent that they went back to him ‘multiple times.’

But prior to them going back to him and the Italian accepting the job, there were others in the mix.

Former Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino remains held in high regard at the club, but as he was essentially ‘ring-fenced’ until his World Cup with the USA is over, he wasn’t a viable option.

Marco Silva was also reportedly in the mix, with an informal approach made to Fulham, but there was no deal able to be struck.

READ: De Zerbi picks out two Tottenham stars as key to Premier League survival – ‘He’s a clean guy’

The biggest name Tottenham tried, though, was Unai Emery, with investigations made into whether the Aston Villa manager could be lured in.

It’s reported, though, that Villa ‘wouldn’t countenance letting him go’ and the Spanish boss himself would ‘have designs on returning to one of the absolute top-tier jobs’ were he to leave Villa Park.

In short, Emery is too successful to take the Tottenham job. He boasts four Europa League trophies and Ligue 1 among his career haul, and currently manages a Villa side fourth in the Premier League, 13 places above Spurs.

READ: Roy Keane tells Tottenham they’ll be ‘in the Championship’ next season

In any case, De Zerbi is seen as a good appointment in north London, with multiple sources stating the players ‘love’ him already.

It is suggested there’s a confidence in staying up. To do so, Spurs will have to outperform West Ham for the next seven games, as they’re the side posing them the most competition – just a point below them and having picked up four points in their last three games.

Between now and the end of the season, Tottenham play top-half sides Brighton, Villa, Everton and Chelsea.

Everton, Arsenal and Brentford are the only top-half sides the Hammers have left to play, so they may have the more favourable run, but not by much.

A Tottenham star is reportedly ‘confident’ of returning to his old club and has communicated that both to the club and the players he shared the pitch with there.

Spurs could see a lot of their players exit the club this summer. If they’re relegated to the Championship, then big names will leave, and otherwise, Roberto De Zerbi will push out some who have not had an impact.

One man who will almost certainly not be in north London next season is striker Randal Kolo Muani. The Frenchman joined on loan from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer, with no buy clause at the end of it.

Given he’s scored just once in 23 Premier League games this season, the chances that Tottenham will go out of their way to negotiate his signing seem minimal.

Kolo Muani doesn’t want to stay anyway, according to recent reports.

Tuttosport reports he’s ‘confident’ of returning to former loan club Juventus, and he’s ‘made this clear’ to the club as well as his old team-mates.

Kolo Muani spent the back half of the 2024/25 season on loan at Juve, where he scored eight goals in the Serie A, before playing for them in the Club World Cup, where he added another two goals and an assist.

READ: Tottenham heavy favourites to sign departing Liverpool legend for nothing

Complications with finances meant that the Frenchman never returned to Juventus, despite both him and the club being open to reuniting after the fantastic spell he had with them.

The report states that the finances involved are ‘significantly lower’ than previous, which should help Juventus to the transfer.

Though the Italian side want to bring Kolo Muani back through the door, they envision that current striker Dusan Vlahovic will still be there next season.

READ: De Zerbi picks out two Tottenham stars as key to Premier League survival – ‘He’s a clean guy’

While Luciano Spalletti is happy with the striker’s efforts, it’s believed two attacking reinforcements will be necessary.

Kolo Muani is the top target, and it’s believed PSG will have no issues with selling him, but there’s also the ‘dream’ addition of Robert Lewandowski at Juventus.

That move, it’s said, will be a dead end if there is no Champions League football on offer. Juve are fifth in Serie A, one point below fourth-placed Como, with seven games left to play.

The club are believed to have gathered information on the Barcelona striker but it’s not yet known how feasible that move will be.

Roy Keane quipped that Tottenham will be “in the Championship next season” in a discussion about the best stadiums in English football.

Spurs are in huge danger of dropping into the second tier of English football. With only seven games remaining this season, the north London club are just a point above the relegation places.

They have burned through managers Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor already, and Roberto De Zerbi is the man hoping to save Tottenham, having been given a five-year deal when he joined in recent weeks.

As per Keane, speaking on Stick to Football, Tottenham aren’t going to be saved, though.

When discussing the best stadiums in English football, Wayne Rooney pitched Tottenham’s as the best in the country, to which Keane replied: “In the Championship next year.”

Rooney and Gary Neville laughed at Keane’s partially tongue-in-cheek remark, and the conversation went back to stadia.

While Keane’s tone seemed not to suggest he actually fully believes that will be the case at this stage, there is a genuine possibility of it.

READ: Big Weekend: Chelsea v Man City, Arsenal, Isak, De Zerbi and Spurs

That said, reports have suggested new boss De Zerbi has the players impressed by his training sessions so far, and Spurs insider John Wenham is sharing in that feeling.

He told Tottenham News: “It does seem like the pictures of the players, the training sessions seem really good, there’s been reports coming out that the players for that session have been really good.

“They’re coming away from it, buzzing and happy, there are a lot of smiling faces, even Micky van de Ven and others who have painted a sort of gloomy picture for some parts of the season, now all seem to be buying into De Zerbi and his coaching staff, which is obviously a good sign.

READ: De Zerbi picks out two Tottenham stars as key to Premier League survival – ‘He’s a clean guy’

“It’s something we need because there’s no time for an adaptation period. I think he was quite clever in his in-house media interview, where he basically said he’s got his principles and he’s got his way of playing, but at the moment, we’re just going to be focusing on the basics to get wins over the line.

“He used slightly different words, but that was the idea that maybe over pre-season we can build into his philosophy and his style of play a little bit more.

“But at the moment, he’s just going to be going back to basics and just trying to get as many points on the board as possible between now and the end of the season.”

The overwhelming expectation is Andy Robertson signs for Tottenham on a free transfer at season’s end, though there is one condition that must be met before the Liverpool man arrives in north London.

Liverpool announced on Thursday evening that Robertson, 32, will bring his sensational nine-year stint at Anfield to a close in the summer.

That is when the Scot’s current contract expires, and per Ben Jacobs, Liverpool made no attempts to iron out a renewal.

Explaining why, Jacobs revealed Robertson still believes he should be starting games. But with Milos Kerkez in the building and Arne Slot immediately prioritising the Hungarian, Robertson must now depart.

Tottenham came close to signing Robertson in the winter window, only to see Liverpool block the move after failing to recall Kostas Tsimikas from his loan spell at Roma.

Both Liverpool and Tsimikas were open to his early return, though the terms of his loan agreement don’t contain a recall clause. When Roma ran out of time to sign an adequate replacement, Tsimikas remained in Rome and Robertson remained in Liverpool.

But according to the latest from The Athletic’s David Ornstein, Spurs are now heavy favourites to sign Robertson at the second time of asking.

He wrote: ‘Tottenham Hotspur are in pole position to sign Andy Robertson as a free agent this summer, subject to retaining their Premier League status.’

The second part of that sentence is key – Robertson will only sign for Spurs if they’ve retained their Premier League status.

Ahead of this weekend’s games, Tottenham sit 17th in the table, just a single point above West Ham in 18th.

Liverpool and Robertson’s relationship remains strong and his professionalism has remained exemplary in the second half of the season despite his January move to Tottenham falling through.

READ NEXT: The final Premier League table to push every manager to the exit

Robertson cost Liverpool just £8m prior to add-ons when signed from Hull City back in 2017. He will go down as one of the biggest bargains in Premier League history, not to mention one of Liverpool’s greatest ever full-backs.

The Scot won it all at Anfield including two Premier League titles, a Champions League, an FA Cup and two League Cups. He was named in two PFA teams of the season during the peak of Jurgen Klopp’s reign between 2018-20.

Offering insight as to why Tottenham will move for Robertson despite his advancing age, The Athletic’s Elias Burke pointed to the veteran’s leadership.

He wrote: ‘Tottenham are short on leadership, left-back depth and winners at the elite level — Robertson helps to solve all three areas.’

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Burke continued: ‘While, at 32, he may not be the player he was in his prime, his experience in helping to drive a winning culture in the Liverpool dressing room under Jurgen Klopp and Arne Slot could prove invaluable as Spurs aim to restore their position as a club competing for European places.

‘He could also help with the development of 23-year-old Udogie, who has been in and out of the Tottenham side this season with injury, and 19-year-old Souza, who was signed from Santos in Brazil in January and has made four league appearances.

‘Experienced players were important for new head coach Roberto De Zerbi at Brighton & Hove Albion, and Robertson could assume a similar role.

‘And, given he is seemingly keen to play more football after having a reduced role at Liverpool this term, Spurs, providing they beat the drop, should offer Robertson the chance to share minutes with Udogie and Souza in the coming years.’

It’s big at the top and bottom of the Premier League and huge at the foot of the Football League too…

After a break of what feels like forever – Manchester United have never had a longer scheduled lay-off – the Premier League returns with a full weekend from Friday to Monday.

With Easter in the rear view mirror, it’s just massive everywhere…

Game to watch – Chelsea v Manchester City

This is massive for City, obviously, in the context of the title race, but it’s also impossible to take eyes off Chelsea at the moment too.

The Blues are a confused, confusing mess, with too many leaders, all seemingly assuming the others know what they are doing. In the thick of it is a manager already out of his depth, leading a group of nonplussed players, many of whom are fluttering their eyelashes at other clubs.

Chief among them: vice-captain Enzo Fernandez, who misses the City visit through a suspension imposed by Liam Rosenior in a desperate attempt to claim some authority.

On the face of things, City should have few concerns about going to Stamford Bridge, where they haven’t lost in their last five. But the fear with Chelsea, and the frustration among their supporters, is they can still turn it on if they are feeling that way inclined.

And for City, it’s must-win. Come Sunday, albeit with two games in hand, it is entirely possible that they will be staring up at a 12-point gap between themselves and…

Team to watch – Arsenal

A lot has happened in the near-month since Arsenal last played in the Premier League. That was the 2-0 win over Everton when Max Dowman sparked pandemonium at the Emirates, the boy’s late show serving as a potentially defining moment in the title race.

The four games since have humbled Gooners somewhat. From a Quadruple they now claim never to have considered, Arsenal’s potential trophy haul has been halved after defeats more damaging than simply the scoreline and consequence.

In truth, despite the Champions League being the only positive of their last four weeks, it could half again and Arsenal fans won’t care much as long as the Premier League is their last trophy standing. And they don’t bottle it.

We’ve all had great fun at the Gunners’ expense in the Barclays vacuum but now it’s finally back, against Bournemouth on Saturday lunchtime, it is on Arsenal to reassert the authority lost having being out-coached by Pep Guardiola, and out-fought and out-thought by second-tier Southampton.

Manager to watch – Roberto De Zerbi

The man tasked with saving Spurs has been in post for a week and a half and, obviously, the messages being transmitted by the club are very positive. The players have taken to De Zerbi very positively, they are ‘really enjoying’ training, yada yada…

Let’s see how buoyant they are in Sunderland on Sunday. By the time they arrive on Wearside on Saturday, Tottenham will finally have slipped into the bottom three if West Ham have beaten rock-bottom Wolves on Friday night.

That is unlikely to affect De Zerbi’s approach but it will be fascinating to see what wisdom the Italian has been able to impart on his beleaguered bunch in the 11 days since he took over from Igor Tudor.

De Zerbi is a front-footed coach, often to an extreme, who demands a very particular way of playing. His sides patiently tease and tempt opponents into positions they would prefer not to be before attacking at break-neck speed. They press in a similarly frantic fashion too, all of which would make Spurs great to watch if, as De Zerbi would have preferred, the manager had a full pre-season to preach his philosophy.

He’s had a full week. How much will he have to compromise in the short-term to serve Spurs’ immediate needs?

MORE: Top 10 issues De Zerbi and Tottenham must instantly address to try and avoid calamity

Player to watch – Alexander Isak

Look, we can’t ignore Liverpool this weekend. Arguably, there will be more eyes on Mo Salah as he plays at Anfield for the first time since it was announced his farewell procession had officially begun.

There will definitely be more eyes on Arne Slot, very few of them sympathetic to the Liverpool manager’s plight. Slot did not help himself with an ill-advised switch to a back three at PSG – it did not work – but he had reached the sh*t-chucking stage in the hope that something, anything might stick a good while before flying to Paris.

We will all be stunned if it turns out that Slot does have the answers to Liverpool’s many woes after all. Without one of those Anfield nights, which has rarely seemed more unlikely, next week prompting a swift and stunning uptick in performances and results, the Dutchman is on borrowed time.

Before PSG, though, come Fulham at Anfield. Which gives Slot an opportunity to see what shape the Premier League’s most expensive player is in.

Isak was back on the bench in Paris, coming off it for the final 12 minutes to make one pass, one tackle and one turnover as the Reds sought little more than survival.

If Slot has any intention of trusting his £140million striker to help save him, a far longer cameo will be necessary against the Cottagers.

European game to watch – Inter Milan v Como

In truth, there aren’t many games on the continent this weekend to grab you by the balls and squeeze. The leaders in Italy, Spain and Germany all have seven-point leads, as will PSG in France if they win their game in hand over Lens.

Of the big European league pacesetters, Inter have perhaps the toughest test this weekend when, on Sunday night, they host local-ish rivals Como.

We say ‘rivals’ – Como won’t have registered on Inter’s radar until very recently. But in their second season in the top flight following three promotions in six seasons from Serie D, Cesc Fabregas has Como on course to keep going all the way to the Champions League.

They are currently fourth, one point ahead of Juventus. An incredible achievement, though their underdog story requires a little more context…

MORE: Como’s Champions League push under Cesc Fabregas is not the fairytale it seems

EFL game to watch – Newport County v Harrogate Town

There is a very tasty East Anglian derby between promotion-chasing Ipswich and in-form Norwich on Saturday lunchtime, and we could have pointed you towards the all-Hatters affair in the Vertu Trophy final between Luton and Stockport on Sunday.

But you will have to pardon the self-indulgence for a few paragraphs while some of us sh*t ourselves ahead of the crunch League Two clash at Rodney Parade on Saturday afternoon.

Bottom-placed Harrogate Town go to third-from-bottom Newport for a six-pointer to be endured, not enjoyed. It is tighter than two coats of paint at the foot of the Football League, where Town and Tranmere are separated by four places and three points, with Barrow and Newport sandwiched in between, all desperate to avoid dropping out of the 92.

In seasons past, you could generally rely on at least one basket case of a club to take up one of the two relegation spots, but this year no one is going to the National League willingly, even if Tranmere are spiralling having won just once since New Year’s Day.

Harrogate have recovered from a 20-match winless run through the winter to give themselves a fighting chance in spring, while Premier League title winner Christian Fuchs has revived Newport after they spent 22 matchdays so far in the drop zone.

A win on Saturday won’t keep either up but a defeat would make a potentially catastrophic relegation far likelier with three games to go.