The New York Times

Tottenham Hotspur have banned three supporters “indefinitely” after making Nazi salutes during the club’s Champions League game at Eintracht Frankfurt in January.

The north London club said the three fans had showed “utterly abhorrent conduct” and have been banned from attending matches in line with the club’ sanctions and banning policy.

A Spurs statement on Monday read: “The club has cooperated fully with UEFA’s investigation, as well as with German police on the night and, subsequently, the Met Police.”

UEFA have handed Tottenham a suspended sanction from selling away tickets for one of the governing body’s games, alongside a fine of €30,000 (£26,100) for the incidents.

The ticket sales ban is suspended for a probationary period of a year from March 2, meaning Spurs will have away fans at their Champions League last-16 first leg at Atletico Madrid next week.

The sanction will, however, come into force if the club is found guilty of another offence in that period.

“The club stands firmly against all forms of discrimination and has therefore taken the strongest possible action,” the club statement added. “The disgusting behaviour of a minority of so-called fans on the night is in no way reflective of the values of our club and its supporters.”

Spurs have also been fined for €2,250 for the throwing of objects by fans during the Frankfurt game on January 28.

The decision was made by UEFA’s Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body.

Randal Kolo Muani and Dominic Solanke scored as Spurs beat Frankfurt 2-0 at Deutsche Bank Park in their final game of the initial phase. The result ensured the Premier League side finished fourth in the Champions League league phase and qualified for the round of 16, while Frankfurt were eliminated.

Tottenham Hotspur players face wage cuts if the club are relegated from the Premier League, owing to clauses written into their contracts.

Spurs are currently 16th in the top-flight, only four points above the drop zone with 10 fixtures remaining.

They have not won a domestic game this calendar year and recently appointed Igor Tudor to replace Thomas Frank as head coach, in an attempt to rescue their season.

However, the Croatian has overseen defeats in his opening two matches against Arsenal and Fulham — heightening the possibility of Spurs falling into England’s second tier for the first time since 1977.

Should that happen there would be major ramifications on and off the pitch, although when it comes to squad remuneration there are provisions in place to limit the cost.

The Athletic can reveal that most members of the first team squad are on deals which include mandatory salary reductions and the vast majority would see their earning slashed by around 50 per cent.

It was a provision factored into all existing agreements struck before Daniel Levy’s departure as executive chairman in September, granting Spurs an element of protection against the doomsday scenario of demotion.

Since Levy’s departure, Spurs have signed two first-team players, Conor Gallagher from Atletico Madrid and the Brazilian full-back Sousa from Santos.

Tudor’s men host Crystal Palace on Thursday and then travel to Spain for their Champions League round of 16 first leg against Atletico Madrid.

The Premier League’s official X account has deleted a post which mocked Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario following conversations between the League and the club.

The League shared the clip of Vicario hoofing a free-kick from his own half straight out of play during Spurs’ 2-1 defeat at Fulham on Sunday, accompanied by the caption: ‘Just how the play was drawn up’.

The video itself included additional captions, reading ‘An interesting free-kick from Vicario’ along with a laughing emoji, before the word ‘whoops’ and another laughing emoji, as the video cut to Spurs’ head coach Igor Tudor on the touchline.

According to reports, the Premier League deleted the post following a complaint from the club. Spurs did not respond when asked for comment by The Athletic.

The post had been viewed just under half a million times on X, where the Premier League’s official account has nearly 45 million followers, before it was deleted. It was initially posted by the League on TikTok, from which it has also been deleted.

The post led to criticism of Vicario from users on X, as well as frustration from some Spurs fans at the Premier League’s decision.

The defeat at Craven Cottage was Spurs’ tenth league game without win, and leaves them four points above the bottom three with 10 games to play.

Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday, The Athletic discusses three of the biggest questions posed by the weekend’s Premier League action.

This was the round when Wolverhampton Wanderers were the only team in the bottom six to earn any points with a well-deserved win over Aston Villa, Brentford and video assistant referee Paul Tierney made Burnley boss Scott Parker “more sad than frustrated”, Liverpool recorded the least convincing 5-2 victory in memory, Everton won at Newcastle United, Brighton & Hove Albion beat Nottingham Forest, and Sunderland were robbed of an obvious penalty in an otherwise decent 1-1 draw with Bournemouth.

But here we will discuss the latest chapter in the title race, the shortening of Tottenham Hotspur’s relegation odds and the very real possibility that Manchester United might be… back?

Are nervy Arsenal still title favourites?

Three set-piece goals, a Chelsea player getting sent off for something daft, a goal disallowed for offside and Arsenal winning — just. If you had to pick one game to sum up the 2025-26 season, you could do a lot worse than Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Chelsea on Sunday.

It wasn’t a bad game — lots happened, I suppose — it just won’t live that long in the memory. In fact, it has only just finished and I have already forgotten most of the first half apart from Arsenal’s opener from a corner and Chelsea’s very similar equaliser, an own goal from Piero Hincapie.

The second half was better — Chelsea started to play a bit, only for Arsenal to draw on their set-piece playbook again and score their third goal from a corner in one game, this time in the right goal. Jurrien Timber nodded this one in.

One minute later, Pedro Neto was yellow-carded for moaning. Three minutes later, he received a second booking for an agricultural lunge at Gabriel Martinelli and was sent off. Game not quite over but the now customary mood of impending doom at the Emirates Stadium lifted and Arsenal regained the control that they have exerted for most of this season.

So, having seen Manchester City survive their own stern examination under the lights at Leeds United on Saturday, Arsenal regained their five-point cushion at the top of the table. Phew. Twenty-nine down, nine to go.

Unlike our American colleagues, we do not go in for anything as subjective as “power rankings”, as we tend to believe that is what the league table is for. But if we did, I wonder who we would have in top spot this week?

Would Arsenal’s response — back-to-back wins over their two biggest local rivals — to those draws at Brentford and Wolves be enough to keep them at the top of our pops, or would we be all over the Momentum-chester City narrative? After all, they have won six straight in all competitions and handled Leeds well enough without Erling Haaland.

For what it is worth, I would be voting for Arsenal. Yes, I know they have not won one a league title for 22 years, Manchester City have won lots and they, unlike Arsenal, got appreciably better in the January transfer window, but I am going to refer to that league table thing again (the one in England and the one UEFA runs) and note that Arsenal have been a little bit better than City this season and they just need to keep doing that for about two more months.

Just think how many corners they will have in that time.

Are Tottenham really as bad as they look?

When Tottenham finished last season in 17th place, the consensus was that injuries, Ange Postecoglou’s tactics and prioritising their best shot at silverware for years had conspired to make them look worse than they really were. After all, they ended up 13 clear of the drop zone, had finished in fifth the season before, and beat Manchester United to win their first trophy for 17 years, the Europa League.

How is that consensus looking now?

OK, Spurs are still struggling with injuries and they are doing well in Europe again. You could also point out that they are 16th, so they have improved. Crisis, what crisis, right?

Or you could stop kidding yourself. Spurs are rubbish and have been rubbish for over a year. And they are absolutely not too big to go down.

The 2-1 defeat to Fulham on Sunday was not especially dreadful but it was predictable and deserved. It was also their 10th Premier League game without a win, which ties their previous worst-ever run under Ossie Ardiles in 1994. They finished 15th that season, so this is hardly uncharted territory.

Fulham, who completed their first double over their London rivals since 2004, were 2-0 up after 34 minutes and cruising. Spurs did get better in the second half and Richarlison reemerged from the treatment room to pull one back just after the hour mark. But that was Tottenham’s only effort on goal all game.

But perhaps most worrying for Spurs is that their luck — or even a fair share of it — has disappeared. A week after one video assistant referee declined to get involved when Randal Kolo Muani’s potential equaliser against Arsenal was disallowed for pushing Gabriel/Gabriel’s Oscar-worthy flop (delete to suit your agenda), another VAR decided Raul Jimenez’s sneaky shove of Radu Dragusin/bog-standard collision (ditto) was fine. Harry Wilson’s volleyed opener followed two seconds later.

New boss Igor Tudor has been at the club for two games, both defeats, but he gets it. Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, the Croatian, whose only trophy during a 14-year managerial career is the 2013 Croatian Cup with Hajduk Split, said Spurs “lacked everything”. In a rant that reads like the famous Australian “can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field” assessment of England cricket teams in the 1980s, Tudor claimed Spurs “were not good attacking and defending”.

But later, when talking to the written media, he reserved his strongest criticism for the officials.

“It’s so obvious,” he said of the Jimenez shove/nothingburger.

“You need to cancel this… it’s ridiculous to not give the foul because the consequence is too big. It’s not a small foul in the middle of the pitch, it’s a goal.”

As for Jimenez, don’t get Igor started.

“He was not thinking about the ball; he was thinking about how to cheat. So he cheated, the player pushing, and they scored the goal. It’s logic. It’s cheating and a foul.”

Hey, maybe blaming Jimenez and Craig Pawson’s VAR team for Tottenham’s predicament is the way to go, and everything will look much rosier after Thursday’s home game against Crystal Palace.

Or perhaps Tottenham’s return of four points from their last 10 games is a fairer assessment of the team they are — and the hole they are in — than a couple of 50/50 referee decisions?

Are Manchester United really… back?

There have been plenty of Mondays over the last year or so when everything I have just written about Spurs could also have been written about Manchester United. To be honest, I think I have done so the last couple of times I have helmed the good ship Monday Briefing. What is it they say… hated, adored, never ignored?

Well, colour me guilty. And having buried United, I am now going to praise them.

They are now third, THIRD, in the league, after winning six and drawing one of their last seven league games. Sunday’s victory over Crystal Palace was not as stirring as the wins over Manchester City and Arsenal that kickstarted the second coming of Michael Carrick — and they definitely won the VAR lottery in this game — but a win is a win and they played some decent stuff towards the end, albeit with a man advantage.

Bruno Fernandes continued to prove that even really good players play best in their favourite positions and Benjamin Sesko showed that less can be more by scoring his sixth goal in 2026 after a first-half display that totalled seven touches.

With Aston Villa and Chelsea losing, this was another good weekend for United, who have not been this high in the table for nearly three years. With fifth practically guaranteed to be good enough for Champions League football next season, Carrick & Co have a six-point advantage over sixth-placed Chelsea, with 10 games to play.

There is still plenty of football to come, though, not least hosting Aston Villa, a trip to Chelsea in April and high-stakes home games against Leeds and Liverpool.

But for the first time in a long time, Manchester United will go into all of those fixtures looking more like their old selves, with good players in good form, a pragmatist picking the team and plenty of rest. So, I am not quite ready to say they are “back” back yet — let us see how next season’s Champions League campaign goes first — but they have at least left the banter-club ward.

Coming up this week

Tottenham Hotspur’s biggest problem — the top entry in a very long list — is that they look like they have forgotten how to win.

The last time Spurs won a league game was December 28. We have entered March. Since Archie Gray’s winner from a corner at Crystal Palace, Tottenham have played 10 league games. They have taken just four points. To call that run ‘relegation form’ barely does it justice. Unless they do far better than that, twice as better, in their remaining 10 games, they will not be playing in the Premier League next season.

Everyone knows the stakes. The spectre of relegation, unthinkable for a generation, is looming over this football club. It would be a disaster without precedent, the club with the ninth-biggest revenues in Europe travelling to Charlton Athletic, Portsmouth and Lincoln City next season. But anyone who watches this team knows that the threat is real.

Last month, the Spurs board pulled the only lever available to them — they fired Thomas Frank and replaced him with Igor Tudor, hoping he could conjure up a few wins. Spurs do not need to be perfect to save themselves, but they need to be far better than this.

Tudor has only had two weeks with the players and this, at Craven Cottage, was his second game. But he already looks like a man wondering what buttons he can press, what combinations he can deploy, to help this team do the one thing they look so unable to do.

If Tottenham do go down — and at least for them, they did not lose any ground to West Ham United or Nottingham Forest this weekend — then this will ultimately be what drags them down into the Championship. That is the huge hole in the hull of this sinking ship. The issue is not simply one of player quality, nor is it necessarily one of tactics and selection. The confidence of this group has been so drained that the players can barely compete.

When Tudor came through to give his post-match press conference, he was insistent that this was not just an issue of formations. “The last thing that is important is the system,” was how he put it. Which, in one sense, gets him off the hook, although it is hard to disagree that Spurs’ issues are more profound than simply tactics.

The players all look utterly alienated from what ought to come easily to them, struggling to do the things they have been doing their whole professional lives.

In almost every Spurs game this year, there have been long spells, even before the game is lost, when it is theoretically still in the balance, when they just fail to do the basics required. The same story we saw against Arsenal, Newcastle United and Manchester United recently was true again here against Fulham.

Tottenham did not have especially bad defensive players on the pitch, in theory. Micky van de Ven and Pedro Porro are very good. Guglielmo Vicario is a good goalkeeper having a bad year. Joao Palhinha proved at this very ground that he is adept at screening a defence. But when Kenny Tete clipped the ball into the box early on, he faced very little resistance. Oscar Bobb also had plenty of space to cross back in from the other side. Tudor complained about a push from Raul Jimenez on Radu Dragusin, but no Spurs player had the conviction to deal with the situation before Harry Wilson finished.

Almost every time Fulham attacked, they managed to work good shooting positions. The second goal came when Alex Iwobi was free to advance, play a one-two with Wilson and then, under no pressure, drive an excellent strike into the far bottom corner of the goal.

The idea of organised resistance from Spurs, making it consistently difficult for Fulham, was just a fantasy. Fulham should have had a third soon after the break when Bobb brushed off Palhinha like he was not there and set up Emile Smith Rowe.

As bad as Spurs were at the back — and they were often shambolic — their lack of quality on the ball was even more worrying. Tottenham did not show the confidence, trust or optimism required to create anything. They were reduced to trying their luck from the edge of the box or hoping for a fortunate bounce from a corner. Richarlison’s headed goal was a good move, Spurs’ best of the game, but they had no idea how to build on that or replicate it. It was a one-off.

For far too much of the afternoon, Spurs players looked like the last thing they wanted was the ball at their feet. Early in the second half, Vicario took a free kick and booted it over everyone for a goal kick to Fulham. Palhinha, at one point, with the ball in space, tackled it as if there were a Fulham player only he could see. And it was impossible to blame Porro or Dragusin or Van de Ven when they hacked the ball away, because there were never any options or passes for them.

If Spurs can just win one game, and remember how it feels, there is no reason they should not be able to win a few more and cruise to safety. But the longer it is since they last won, the more distant the memory, the bigger the mental block they will have. That is why Thursday’s game against Crystal Palace is so important. If they can find the “forces inside”, as Tudor put it, and just win once, all of this could go away. But that, even a home win against a bottom-half side, looks like a mountain to climb.

Tottenham Hotspur head coach Igor Tudor has accused Raul Jimenez of “cheating” in the buildup to Fulham’s opening goal and described the decision to award it as “ridiculous” as Spurs lost 2-1 at Craven Cottage on Sunday.

Fulham went ahead in the seventh minute through Harry Wilson, who converted an Oscar Bobb cross from close range. Seconds before, Fulham striker Jimenez appeared to push Spurs defender Radu Dragusin with two hands in the box as they contested an aerial duel. The decision was checked by VAR Craig Pawson, who opted not to reverse the on-field judgment by referee Thomas Bramall.

“The referee’s call of goal was checked and confirmed by VAR – with it deemed the contact by Jimenez on Dragușin did not meet the threshold for a foul,” a statement from the Premier League’s matchday centre read.

“It’s so obvious,” Tudor said in his post-match press conference after he was asked about his opinion on the incident. “Sometimes they don’t understand enough that even small contact gives you an advantage to score the goal. You need to cancel this. It’s not about normal duel when it’s soft or not, when it’s a push, with hands. It’s just easy to get an advantage. It’s ridiculous to not give the foul because the consequence is too big. It’s not a small foul in the middle of the pitch, it’s a goal. There is logic in that.

“With the referees, it’s a beautiful thing to play here — let’s play strong, duels. Fantastic. I like it. But there is logic. The goal is because he (Jimenez) takes advantage, not thinking about football. He was not thinking about the ball. He was thinking how to cheat. So he cheated, the player pushing, and they scored the goal. It’s logic. It’s cheating and a foul.”

Tottenham were on the wrong side of a similar decision last week, with referee Peter Bankes judging Randal Kolo Muani to have pushed defender Gabriel shortly before scoring what would have been an equalising goal to make it 2-2 in the eventual 4-1 defeat to Arsenal. The VAR checked the decision, but opted to stick with Bankes’ on-field judgment.

Tudor was incensed on the sidelines after the decision at Craven Cottage, and his frustration continued into the press conference. Tottenham are yet to win a Premier League game in 2026 — drawing four and losing six of their last ten.

“It’s complicated, the situation,” Tudor said. “Lots of problems. I cannot tell you nothing new. We need to find forces inside each of us. I said to the players, ‘It’s always what you want to do with yourself’. More personality. More wish to do. We lack when we attack. We lack quality to score. We lack in the middle to run. We lack behind to stay and suffer and not concede.”

After going 2-0 down in the first half, Tottenham had a late second-half flurry inspired by Richarlison, who scored his first goal since suffering a hamstring injury in January.

Tottenham return to action on Thursday, hosting Crystal Palace, the last team Spurs beat in the Premier League.

Another weekend, another London derby defeat for Tottenham Hotspur. And though this was not against arch-rivals Arsenal, losing at Fulham is just as damaging.

After last week’s 4-1 loss, fans will have wanted to see a reaction, and there were first-half protests and chants against the board.

There will have been anger, too, that Harry Wilson’s early opener was allowed to stand after a similar incident in the north London derby last Sunday. There could be no complaints over the second Fulham goal, though, as Alex Iwobi fired home with brilliant technique from outside the area.

Richarlison pulled one back for Spurs in the second half, and Pape Matar Sarr went close at the end, but it was not enough.

The result leaves Spurs exactly where they started the weekend: in 16th position in the Premier League, four points above the bottom three.

Elias Burke discusses the fallout from the game in west London.

Where do Spurs and Tudor go from here?

Sometimes, a fresh infusion of energy and tactical direction can be enough to entirely turn a season around — but that certainly has not been the case so far under Tudor.

While last week’s defeat to Arsenal was a disappointment, Tudor will not be judged by his ability to beat Europe’s best sides. And while Craven Cottage has been a difficult place for Tottenham to come in recent seasons, the clock is ticking down on Spurs’ season, and they needed to at least remain competitive against mid-table opposition.

Truthfully, however, Tottenham were comfortably second best for much of the afternoon, and were fortunate to only be two goals down by the time Richarlison headed in for 2-1 shortly after the hour mark.

(Ben Stansall/ AFP via Getty Images)

Tottenham’s terrible home form has been a large part of why they find themselves in a relegation battle, but Tudor has surely circled the visit of Crystal Palace on Thursday as an opportunity to record their first league win of 2026.

Fortunately, owing to defeats for West Ham United and Nottingham Forest, Tottenham’s 13th league defeat of the season did not draw them any closer to the drop zone, but they cannot afford to continue banking on results around them.

Richarlison’s cameo will offer some encouragement to the coach, with the Brazilian netting his first goal since returning from a hamstring injury sustained in January. The fact that it came from an overlapping run from Archie Gray, playing as a left wing-back due to injuries to Djed Spence and Destiny Udogie, suggests his system can create goalscoring opportunities in the Premier League — even though Fulham regularly sliced through the man-to-man pressing system.

But the bottom line hasn’t changed: Tottenham need wins.

How did fans react?

It took just seven minutes for Tottenham to concede, after which sections of the supporters quickly directed their attention to the board.

Club chief executive Vinai Venkatesham sat next to Vivienne Lewis, part of the Lewis family, inside the directors’ box at Craven Cottage, and surely heard the Spurs faithful vent their frustrations. Their chants only increased in frequency and vitriol when Iwobi casually side-footed Fulham into a two-goal lead inside the first 45 minutes.

But while angry chants directed towards the board are nothing new for Spurs fans, the players did not escape the blame, with “you’re not fit to wear the shirt” sung on one occasion in the first half.

The atmosphere improved after Richarlison’s goal, with Spurs fans willing an equaliser, but their efforts were ultimately in vain as they slumped to another poor performance and defeat.

However, despite the result, Spurs fans did applaud the players at full time.

Should Wilson goal have been disallowed?

Tottenham are in a seemingly endless battle with VAR and Premier League officiating, and fans may have genuine cause for frustration with the decision to award Harry Wilson’s opening goal.

Moments before the Wales international converted Oscar Bobb’s cross on the volley from close range, Raul Jimenez contested a header with Radu Dragusin inside the Spurs box. With Dragusin having already left the ground, Jimenez nudged him forward with both hands, throwing the Romania international defender off balance.

Moments later, Wilson was celebrating his goal while Dragusin immediately appealed to the referee, signalling a push.

VAR checked the incident, but unlike last week’s incident involving Randal Kolo Muani and Gabriel in the defeat to Arsenal, referee Thomas Bramall did not rule the goal out in the moment, so the criteria is lifted to a clear and obvious mistake. And while replays clearly demonstrated that Dragusin had been pushed in the build-up, VAR Craig Pawson did not deem the incident as worthy of overturning the on-field decision.

Naturally, however, Spurs fans and Tudor — who was incensed on the sidelines — will feel frustrated that another important call has gone against them in the Premier League.

What next for Tottenham?

The unpredictability of the Premier League is highlighted by the fact that Manchester City are the only team currently on a winning run of more than two games, and they’ve won just three games.

England’s top division is known for its competitive depth, meaning there is usually at least one upset every gameweek. It will be no different this weekend, with 10 fixtures spread across Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Here, The Athletic looks at three games over the weekend that could see the underdogs come out on top.

Newcastle United vs Everton

Saturday, February 28 (3pm GMT, 10am ET)

While Newcastle United have a Champions League last-16 tie against Barcelona to look forward to, Eddie Howe’s team have struggled for domestic consistency of late.

They have won just one of their last six league fixtures, dropping into the bottom half of the Premier League table.

This could offer Everton encouragement ahead of Saturday’s trip to the North East, as could Newcastle’s run of just two wins in their last five matches at St James’ Park. Only three teams (Arsenal, Chelsea and Aston Villa) have won more points on the road than Everton this term.

Priced at 10/3 to come out on top at St James’ Park, there is good value in backing Everton to win their sixth match in their last nine away trips.

There have been over 2.5 goals in Newcastle’s last four league games and Saturday’s match is priced at 8/11 to continue that trend.

Newcastle will be without Bruno Guimaraes, while Jack Grealish is sidelined through injury for Everton. The difference between the two teams in the table could be more than just one point after this weekend’s encounter.

Leeds United vs Manchester City

Saturday, February 28 (5.30pm GMT, 12.30pm ET)

Manchester City can narrow the gap on Arsenal at the top of the Premier League table to just two points by overcoming Leeds United on Saturday, with Mikel Arteta’s side facing Chelsea a day later.

There’s good reason for Pep Guardiola’s team to be favourites: City have won their last five matches against Leeds in all competitions and are the Premier League’s joint-top scorers this season.

Nonetheless, Leeds have been on a good run since the last time they faced Manchester City, when Daniel Farke made a tactical shift that now appears to be getting the best out of his squad.

Leeds have lost two of their last 14 league games. Since losing heavily to Arsenal at the end of January, they have gone unbeaten in games against Aston Villa, Chelsea and Nottingham Forest, underlining why there could be value in backing a Leeds win over City at 7/2.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin, the Premier League’s highest-scoring English player, is 11/5 to net his 11th league goal of the season and is 13/1 to bag a brace.

Farke’s team has lost just three times at Elland Road all season and will at least make Manchester City work hard for a result on Saturday.

Fulham vs Tottenham Hotspur

Sunday, March 1 (2pm GMT, 9am ET)

After suffering defeat in the north London derby on his debut as Tottenham Hotspur interim manager, Igor Tudor must find a way to get a positive reaction out of his new players at Craven Cottage this Sunday.

The outlook is bleak for Spurs. Their cushion to the relegation zone now stands at just four points following three straight defeats to Manchester United, Newcastle United and Arsenal, and a run of just two wins in 17 league games.

And yet Tottenham’s best results have come away from home this season, suggesting a price of 21/10 for a victory on Sunday might not be the worst punt.

Tudor is expected to set up Spurs in a back three, as he did against Arsenal. Pedro Porro and Djed Spence will give the visitors width as wing-backs, while Randal Kolo Muani will likely keep his place after scoring in the derby.

The French forward is 11/4 to make it two in two against another London opponent this weekend. The price of 3/4 for over 2.5 goals could also be good value, given there have been over 2.5 goals in each of Fulham’s last five league games.

Do you remember where you were 10 years ago today? Because Tottenham Hotspur were on top of the world.

Cast your mind back, if it is not too painful, to February 28, 2016. Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs hosted Swansea City at White Hart Lane. They went 1-0 down but they never gave up. Sustained by the shared belief of the crowd, Spurs kept battering Swansea, and eventually they broke through. Nacer Chadli equalised and with 13 minutes left, Danny Rose scored the winner. The celebrations were so wild that Pochettino had to stop himself from jumping into the crowd.

At the final whistle, the announcement came through that Arsenal had lost 3-2 at Manchester United. Another roar. Spurs were now three points ahead of Arsene Wenger’s side and just two behind leaders Leicester City. There were only 11 league games left. Swansea caretaker manager Alan Curtis said afterwards that, having seen Spurs up close, he had never been more convinced they could win the Premier League.

For the first time, Tottenham had become the bookmakers’ favourites to win the title.

Their position only strengthened the following Tuesday, when Leicester drew 2-2 at home against West Bromwich Albion. A clear path to the title was opening up.

The next night, March 2, Spurs went to Upton Park, knowing that, if they beat West Ham United, they would overtake Leicester on goal difference with 10 games left. But Slaven Bilic’s side were ferocious and Spurs were caught off guard. West Ham won 1-0 and Spurs had missed an opening.

They missed another opportunity that Saturday, drawing 2-2 against Arsenal at a thrillingly loud White Hart Lane. There were a few minutes, after Harry Kane put them 2-1 up, when Tottenham felt like it was at the centre of the football universe. But Alexis Sanchez equalised and Spurs never got their noses in front of Leicester again.

Spurs ended that season empty-handed. The next season, they were even better, racking up an implausible 86 points, but still losing out to Chelsea. In 2018-19, they flew out of the traps even quicker and were on 45 points by the halfway mark, before falling away.

But since those special days, Tottenham’s story has been about decline. There have been great moments along the way — Amsterdam, Bilbao, a brief spell under Antonio Conte — but the overall trend has been clear. A club being held up as a model to others just 10 years ago — an example of forward thinking, a lesson in doing more with less — look like the opposite.

A decade on from challenging for the title, Tottenham are spending a second consecutive season at the wrong end of the league table. The threat of relegation, unthinkable for a generation, is very real.

One bookmaker, who was offering odds of 7-2 on Spurs winning the Premier League title this time 10 years ago, has them at 9-2 to go down.

How did it come to this? How many mistakes were made along the way, how many opportunities missed or ignored, and what lessons can be learned from this sad drift down the league?

Not refreshing Pochettino’s squad

The fundamental strategic failure was not just the failure to buy Pochettino new players, but also to sell the ones he had.

Pochettino built a great team on a budget, but the life cycle of any team is finite. People get bored of each other. The only way to keep the hunger and energy of the early Pochettino years was to move on players.

Kyle Walker was sold to Manchester City in 2017 but he was the exception rather than the rule. For chairman Daniel Levy, it was a matter of status. He did not want Spurs to look like a selling club. Rose nearly went to Chelsea in 2017, but the deal fell through. Dele Alli never got his big move, even when staff started to wonder if he was losing his edge. Toby Alderweireld fell sharply out of favour but was never moved on. Christian Eriksen was sold to Inter for a relatively small fee with just six months of his contract remaining.

It would have been painful to lose those players, but it would have been a necessary pain. Staff compared it to the need to refresh the water in a swimming pool. And as the whole team stayed together longer than they should have, the project started to go stale.

Not signing anyone in 2018-19

The corollary of not selling enough players is that Spurs did not have the space or the money to bring in new ones. And given the cost of building the new stadium, the club were not exactly flush with cash. They bought Lucas Moura from Paris Saint-Germain in January 2018 — an inspired transfer, given he scored a hat-trick that took Spurs to a Champions League final. But then not a single player came in until the summer of 2019, when Spurs were a very different place.

That is not to say that Spurs did not try to sign anyone. In the summer of 2018, they moved for Jack Grealish, knowing that Aston Villa’s financial situation meant they had to sell. But Levy tried to play it slow, starting the bidding at £3million ($4m at current exchange rates) plus young midfielder Josh Onomah. Spurs gradually started to increase the numbers, but missed their moment. Aston Villa were taken over and their new owners made it clear that Grealish would be going nowhere. Tottenham finished the window empty-handed.

The problem was not just the 2018-19 season, when Spurs had an experienced, if jaded, squad. But that 18-month recruitment gap continued to haunt them for years to come. The whole club were left playing catch-up.

Had they continued to recruit young players towards the end of the 2010s, they would have had more peak-age players in the mid-2020s — something they have lacked in that period.

Replacing Pochettino with Mourinho

Losing the Champions League final to Liverpool in Madrid hit everyone hard, especially after they had flown to the Spanish capital with an almost religious conviction that Spurs would win. When the next season started, Pochettino struggled to find the energy required to lift his team. Spurs had signed some players that summer, but the rot had set in.

During the November international break, Levy decided to replace his greatest ever manager with Jose Mourinho.

On a basic level, it made sense. Mourinho was a ‘proven winner’. Tottenham needed to take the final step to winning. But it ignored how the performances of Mourinho’s teams had been declining. The Pochettino era was built on a style of football and management totally removed from Mourinho.

Above all, the appointment smacked of a belief that the most important thing for Spurs at this point — especially in their new stadium — was that they should be seen around the world as a big club. That became the dominant logic of the post-Pochettino years. And it cost them their identity.

Handing over recruitment to Paratici

In the summer of 2021, Spurs were searching for an identity again. And with a Pochettino reunion impossible, Levy turned to Fabio Paratici, who had been running Juventus for years.

Here was a man who could bring ‘Juventus standards’ to Spurs. Levy gave Paratici more power than he ever handed to any other football executive. And Levy stuck by him after Paratici was forced to resign in 2023 following a ban from football, keeping him on as a trusted consultant.

Paratici’s contacts book did land some good deals, such as Cristian Romero from Atalanta and Dejan Kulusevski from Juventus. But there were plenty of misses along the way, and Spurs were left with a squad with too many unreliable and inconsistent players.

With so much power given to one man for so long, Spurs lost ground to their more progressive, clear-thinking rivals.

Insisting on ‘Premier League-proven’ attacking players

You would struggle to argue that paying £55million for Tanguy Ndombele in 2019 was a good deal. But it was a bold move, signing a 22-year-old who had shone in a good league and had all of Europe following him. And it was the last time Spurs attempted anything that brave, or with that much potential upside.

From that point on, when Spurs spent big on an attacking player, they always did so from the Premier League. But would anyone say they got great value?

Richarlison cost an initial £50million from Everton and has 23 league goals in almost four years. Brennan Johnson cost £47.5m from Nottingham Forest and scored 18 in two and a half seasons, before being sold at a loss to Crystal Palace. Dominic Solanke cost £55m from Bournemouth and has 11 league goals in almost two years. Mohammed Kudus also cost £55m from West Ham and has two league goals from 19 games.

None of those players flopped but none of them been outstanding, either. The clubs targeting the European market, looking for potential stars with big upside, have benefited. Tottenham’s approach, which was meant to be low-risk, has ended up being low-reward too.

Not having a plan to replace Son or Kane

It is impossible to tell the story of the last 10 years without the fact that for so much of it, Spurs had two world-class forwards in Kane and Son Heung-min.

They were a huge part of the success under Pochettino. And Spurs got Kane through their own academy, and Son for just £20million from Bayer Leverkusen in 2015.

The Kane and Son era was never going to last forever. Kane left for Bayern Munich in 2023, Son for LAFC in Major League Soccer in 2025.

They would have needed to spend hundreds of millions to replace them directly but it never felt like there was any plan to bring through the next generation of star players, or to get ahead of their rivals in the market to identify the next big name.

The fear is that Kane and Son were the last two links in a long line, going back through Gareth Bale and Luka Modric, but that there is no one to follow them.

Changing styles every other year

The lack of a clear playing identity since Pochettino left has been painfully obvious.

Spurs have jumped from one idea to the next, but never with the commitment to see anything through. When Levy famously described ‘Tottenham DNA’ in 2021 as “free-flowing, attacking and entertaining” football, he might as well have been talking about Pochettino himself. But then, the next month, Levy and Paratici appointed Nuno Espirito Santo, which says something about the lack of clear thinking at the club over the years.

When Conte replaced Nuno, it felt like Tottenham finally had the world-class manager they wanted, but the Italian was never fully backed with the level of players he wanted to challenge for the title. Then, after he left, Spurs pivoted back in the opposite direction, going for the expansive, high-possession football of Ange Postecoglou.

Levy proudly said “we’ve got our Tottenham back” after Postecoglou arrived, but after two years, he doubled back on himself yet again, going for the over-optimised set-piece efficiency of Thomas Frank. No strategy could ever be seen through, because the strategy changed every time the manager did.

Wage restraint

It is well known how much league performance correlates with wage spending in football. And one of the stories of Spurs in recent years has been their inability to keep pace with their rivals over salaries.

Earlier this decade, Spurs paid roughly the same as Arsenal every year in salaries. But, according to UEFA’s ‘European Club Finance and Investment Landscape’ report this week, Arsenal paid €95million ($112m; £83m at current exchange rates) more on salaries last season than Spurs did (Chelsea paid €121m more, Liverpool paid €191m more and so on). Spurs’ true rivals in wage spending are not the former ‘Big Six’ but Aston Villa and Newcastle United, the two teams who have leap-frogged Spurs in the league in recent years.

Tottenham’s wage structure was traditionally held up as a strength, a route to financial stability and a way to maintain control over players. But fans now see it as a weakness, especially after it emerged last year that Spurs’ wages-to-revenue ratio was just 42 per cent. To many people, that number alone summed up their unwillingness to push the boat out on salaries.

That was a point Postecoglou made repeatedly regarding Spurs’ approach to recruitment on the ‘Stick to Football’ podcast this month.

Sacrificing the good vibes of Bilbao

When Tottenham won the Europa League last year, they had a historic opportunity. Postecoglou had delivered the club’s best moment for a generation, and the hundreds of thousands of fans turning out for the parade proved it.

If the club could have harnessed some of that positive energy, then who knows how this season might have gone? Instead, almost everything that has happened since last May has moved the club away from that day.

Postecoglou was sacked, with the club saying they needed to “compete on multiple fronts”. He was replaced by Frank, whose football and public pronouncements were the polar opposite of his predecessor, and who was no more able to balance European and domestic football than Postecoglou was.

Joao Palhinha split Tottenham Hotspur’s fanbase before he had even pulled on the shirt.

To one section of the supporters, he was an effective antidote to one of the team’s major issues. Last season, there was a hole at the heart of Tottenham’s midfield, and there was nobody with the defensive attributes or tactical nous to fill it. In their view, Spurs needed a destroyer to prevent teams from slicing through the middle of the pitch with ease, and Palhinha, regarded as one of Europe’s best tackling defensive midfielders, helped provide a solution to that problem.

To the other portion, it was yet another example of Spurs’ lack of ambition. Palhinha had been brilliant at Fulham, winning the club’s player of the season award in 2022-23, where his talent without the ball far outweighed his limitations with it. But after failing to make the grade at Bayern Munich, a team that plays expansive, attacking football, questions were raised about whether his attributes were a better fit for a bottom-half side rather than one aspiring to challenge for a European spot.

As he returns to Craven Cottage on Sunday for the first time since leaving for Bavaria in 2024, the jury is still out.

Palhinha has been far from a disaster in a Spurs shirt. He was outstanding in August’s Super Cup penalty shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain, and was integral, chipping in with the opening goal, in a man-of-the-match performance in his next start, a 2-0 away win against Manchester City.

Against sides where Tottenham could only expect to be competitive, Palhinha was a driving force in the midfield that lifted them to a level above City and PSG, who only came back into the game after he was substituted off. His tackling ability, energy and competitiveness are a leveller for outmatched teams.

This season, Palhinha leads the Premier League in tackles (88), despite playing by far the fewest minutes (1,599) of anyone in the top five. James Garner, who ranks second, has made seven fewer tackles in 2,423 minutes, while Elliott Anderson, in third, has made 76 across 2,416 minutes.

Using the “true tackle” metric — a more comprehensive combination of tackles attempted, challenges lost, and fouls made, detailing how frequently a player attempts to win the ball — his numbers continue to stand out. He’s made 12.4 true tackles per 1,000 opposition touches at a 64 per cent win rate, ranking third and fourth, respectively, across all 164 defensive midfielders in Europe’s top five leagues who have played more than 1,200 minutes this season.

And as he often did for Fulham, Palhinha has also steadily contributed with important goals and assists. That opener against City was his first of five in all competitions so far, with a whipped, curling effort against Wolverhampton Wanderers, and overhead kicks against Bournemouth and Doncaster proving he’s much more than a stiff who gets stuck in.

But the data also tells the other side of the story. Palhinha ranks 14th among Spurs players for pass completion at 81.6 per cent. For a player often criticised for his lack of adventure in possession, his relative underperformance (ranking 134th in the same sample) while exhibiting a relatively safe diet of short, sideways and backwards passes, highlights that the early-season concerns were not unfounded.

Even Xavi Simons, who frequently plays high-risk passes into space and between lines, completes his passes at a marginally better rate. It’s barely attributable to his increase in minutes in defence, where he plays a greater share of long passes, either. In fact, his pass completion rate across the entirety of the season, regardless of position, is only marginally lower (81.2).

But if Palhinha were without flaws, he would still be playing for Bayern. His qualities and deficiencies are evident, and have largely remained unchanged since he joined Fulham in 2021. He is a world-class tackler, possibly the best in Europe in his position, but he is below average with the ball and cannot and should not be relied upon to contribute frequently to build-up play.

These conditions are manageable. In his prime, N’Golo Kante was possibly the best ball-winner the Premier League has ever seen. He also happened to be below average among central midfielders in possession, yet remained a huge net positive for Leicester City and Chelsea in their title-winning teams. Sensibly, he was paired in midfield with someone who could distribute at a high level in line with the coach’s tactics. Kante thrived as a consequence.

Palhinha and Kante are different players, with the latter much more mobile than the Portugal international, allowing him to leave his mark in every area of the pitch. Palhinha is much more comfortable operating in the middle of the pitch, though, like in that goal against City, he can press forward higher up the pitch. As football shifts towards a high-octane, transition-oriented game, a player who can win the ball as well as anyone should always have a place in a well-oiled machine. But Spurs, quite clearly, are not that.

With Kevin Danso nearing a return to fitness, Palhinha may again be shifted back into midfield on Sunday. Igor has certainly made clear that’s where he wants to see him.

“He is a big leader, important for the dressing room,” Tudor said of Palhinha in his pre-Fulham press conference. “Not just as a player, also as a human being. He played (in defence against Arsenal), this is not his natural position. So, he did something extra for the team in this particular moment. I know that he’s best (in midfield).”

Given that Tudor has also spoken at length about his desire to be aggressive out of possession and noted his concern with “bad habits”, a character such as Palhinha, who knows how to play on the edge without tipping over, appears a perfect driver for him — even if the lack of a midfield partner to compensate for his shortcomings remains a problem.

After all, Spurs are now in a relegation fight with experience and leadership at a premium. Whether he plays as a makeshift centre-back or in his preferred midfield position, Palhinha, labelled as a bottom-half player by his earliest critics, should surely have an important role in battling to lift the club out of a relegation scrap.