The New York Times

Tottenham Hotspur are clearly in a dire situation.

They have not won a Premier League match since December and are only four points above the relegation zone with 10 of their 38 league games remaining.

Dropping into the Championship would have huge ramifications for everyone at the club. The Athletic reported on Monday that most members of the first-team squad would face mandatory salary reductions of around 50 per cent. Many of them would likely seek an immediate exit if Spurs did go down.

Interim head coach Igor Tudor has a reputation for fixing broken teams in a short space of time but he has lost his first two games in charge, which have shown very few signs of improvement.

Tudor admitted there are “lots of problems” after Sunday’s 2-1 defeat at Fulham. “We lack when we attack,” he said. “We lack quality to score. We lack in the middle to run. We lack behind (in defence) to stay and suffer and not concede.”

Senior players need to step up and drag this team away from danger.

However, captain Cristian Romero will miss Thursday’s fixture away to Crystal Palace as he serves the final game of a four-match ban. Micky van de Ven has worn the armband in his absence but has not looked at his best in recent weeks, while Guglielmo Vicario’s form in goal has been erratic to say the least. James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski continue to recover from the long-term knee injuries which have prevented them from playing a single minute of football this season.

There are a few in the squad who have been in relegation fights before, and that experience could be crucial.

Yves Bissouma spent four years with Brighton & Hove Albion before he joined Spurs in June 2022. Brighton finished 17th in the Premier League in Bissouma’s first season, only two points above Cardiff City, despite not winning any of their final nine games. The midfielder’s contract expires in June and strong performances over the next three months would surely boost his options in the summer. Wilson Odobert suffered back-to-back relegations with Troyes of France’s Ligue 1 and Premier League Burnley in 2022-23 and 2023-24 but will not feature again this season after an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injury in last month’s defeat to Newcastle United.

Nantes finished 18th in Ligue 1 in 2020-21, so faced a two-legged tie against Toulouse, who had come through the Ligue 2 play-offs, with their top-flight status on the line. Randal Kolo Muani scored as Nantes won the first leg 2-1 away, Toulouse responded with a 1-0 victory three days later and the rules meant that the teams therefore stayed in their respective divisions.

Dominic Solanke joined Bournemouth from Liverpool in January 2019. He did not score in his first 38 league appearances for them, and they were relegated in summer 2020 after finishing a point behind Aston Villa. But Solanke redeemed himself in 2022-23 with the drop looming for Bournemouth again, scoring in three crucial victories against Fulham, Spurs and Leeds United in the April and also setting up the other two goals, including Dango Ouattara’s stoppage-time winner, in a 3-2 defeat of his current club.

But it is another of Tottenham’s forwards who has thrived the most when relegation has loomed for his team.

Richarlison became a hero for Everton in the 2021-22 season, scoring six times in their final 10 matches to inspire what had for a while looked an unlikely escape from the trapdoor that leads to the Championship.

The Brazilian had struggled with injuries throughout a campaign that brought a great deal of upheaval off the pitch at Goodison Park: Rafael Benitez was sacked in the January after six months as head coach, to be replaced by Frank Lampard, with director of football Marcel Brands also having left the club the previous month.

Despite all the drama, Richarlison led a revival from February onwards and Tottenham fans will hope he can repeat the trick between now and the end of May. His contribution to the cause was decisive, including the only goal in a 1-0 defeat of Chelsea, which came from him aggressively pressing Chelsea’s Cesar Azpilicueta as he received a pass from fellow defender Thiago Silva, pinching the ball and slotting it past goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.

During that game, a blue smoke-bomb was thrown onto the Goodison pitch. Richarlison raised it high in front of Everton’s supporters, creating an image that was a symbol of that late-season revival, deepening his bond with the fanbase in the process.

There is seemingly not a great relationship between Tottenham’s fans and players at the moment and Richarlison might just be the best candidate to start bridging the gap.

The away end sang his name after his goal as a substitute at Craven Cottage on Sunday to halve the deficit, and at the full-time whistle he was clearly distraught that Spurs had lost again.

The 28-year-old might not be blessed with the technical elegance of Solanke or Kolo Muani, but he is a fighter. Sometimes his emotions take over, but he can never be accused of not caring. Richarlison played through the pain barrier in what proved his final few months with Everton to help keep them up. He barely trained between games and had injections to manage his discomfort.

Richarlison set up Dominic Calvert-Lewin and also scored himself to put Everton in control in a crucial match against Brentford on the penultimate weekend, before red cards for Jarrad Branthwaite and Salomon Rondon turned the match around and left the club facing their first relegation since the 1950s.

His biggest contribution arrived four days later, when he equalised in the 75th minute of a dramatic 3-2 home win over Crystal Palace which confirmed Everton’s safety. In an interview with The Players’ Tribune in June 2023, Richarlison revealed he felt “destroyed” before facing Palace in what was Everton’s last Goodison fixture before a daunting final-day trip to Arsenal.

“I refused to take a medical exam because I knew that if I did it, they wouldn’t let me play,” Richarlison said. “I had to sweat blood that day. When we scored the third goal, you can see that I had nothing left to give. I hit the ground with my head and said to the coach, in tears, ‘I’m done.’ It was my last breath, my last sacrifice, my last game as an Evertonian; a moment I will carry with me for the rest of my life, because I loved playing for this club.”

Spurs have a huge injury list, which includes Maddison, Kulusevski, Mohammed Kudus, Lucas Bergvall, Rodrigo Bentancur and Destiny Udogie. Nobody is suggesting those players should rush back and risk causing themselves more problems, but Richarlison’s selfless act three years ago underlines his character at a time when the Tottenham dressing room is sorely lacking leadership and people prepared to take accountability.

Richarlison is their top scorer in the top flight this season with eight and is joint-third for assists (three) behind Kudus (five) and Xavi Simons (four). Those eight goals have come from 13 starts and 23 appearances across a total of 1,332 minutes. Kolo Muani has started more games (14), made three fewer appearances overall and racked up slightly less playing time (1,154 — effectively two fewer matches) but only scored once.

They have different profiles as players and it is fair to say Richarlison is the more likely of the two to score a scrappy goal for a team low on confidence. His effort in December’s 2-1 home defeat to Liverpool is the perfect example and his immediate response was to shove opponent Hugo Ekitike off the ball when he picked it up out of the net.

Tudor has demanded that the players show “more personality” and “more wish to do”, which should not be a problem for Richarlison, judging by his previous actions.

Tottenham bought him for £60million in July 2022, a few weeks after those relegation-beating heroics for Everton.

Nobody expected he would be asked to perform a similar rescue mission for Spurs four years later, but it may just be the perfect way to make himself a cult hero in the blue-and-white part of north London like he is on the blue half of Merseyside.

In the coming days and weeks, as they try to avoid being swallowed up by the relegation quicksands, maybe the relevant people can get round to answering an intriguing question.

It is the one that is surely being asked already in the boardrooms of Tottenham Hotspur, Nottingham Forest and West Ham United, given the jarring reality that one of those three clubs is likely to drop out of the Premier League and be playing in the Championship next season.

The relevant question: where did it go wrong?

We could follow that up by asking how each club respond to the charge that their positions in the table reflect how they are run as much as being a story of coaching failure.

Are they willing to accept some hard truths and understand that, in football, it is one thing to achieve passing success but quite another to sustain it?

If they are truthful, there would be an acknowledgement from each team that it has been an exercise in self-inflicted damage, that the complaints against them are entirely justified and that, in all three cases, a wonderful opportunity may have been spurned.

For whichever of these sides remain in England’s top division, more fool them if they think staying up should negate the requirement for a period of hard reflection when everything is finally settled.

The “champions of Europe” ensemble, we could call them, bearing in mind the supporters of all three can sing that song, and often do. Historically, in Forest’s case. More recently, for Tottenham and West Ham, albeit via the lesser UEFA competitions.

And didn’t they have fun?

Tottenham’s victory in the Europa League final last year propelled them into this season’s Champions League.

West Ham won the UEFA Conference League in 2023 and, briefly, tried to convince themselves it was the first sighting of a brighter future.

Forest qualified for Europe for the first time in 30 years last May and made such a favourable impression under Nuno Espirito Santo that the BBC asked an entirely different question midway through that season: are they going to win the league?

Yet there is no misfortune, or flukiness, attached to the fact that these are the clubs occupying the Premier League’s 16th, 17th and 18th positions.

West Ham are in most peril of the three, directly above Burnley and Wolverhampton Wanderers in the relegation zone. Forest are one spot higher, but play at title-chasing Manchester City tonight (Wednesday). Tottenham have a little space to breathe, tucked in two points behind Leeds United with a game in hand, but it’s tight and they are horribly out of form. The wind howls, the curtains twitch, and it isn’t easy to know which of these teams ought to feel the most acute embarrassment to be in this position.

Is it Spurs, perhaps, given the financial riches that accompany having the best stadium in England and the considerable evidence that their decline is not just a one-off loss of form but the culmination, season after season, of serial mistakes, questionable decision-making and badly blurred priorities?

Ten years ago, Mauricio Pochettino’s brilliant, fast-flowing side were fighting for the title. Today, Tottenham are contemplating their first relegation since 1977. Worse, their supporters are facing the possibility that they go down while Arsenal, their neighbours and fiercest rivals, finish the season as champions.

Or is it West Ham, where large numbers of supporters regularly protest with black balloons and ‘No More BS’ slogans to signal their disdain for the principal decision-makers, Karren Brady and David Sullivan?

This was the club, lest it be forgotten, that eulogised about Champions League football, not Championship football, when the decision was made to move to the London Stadium. A decade on from leaving Upton Park, West Ham still appear to be suffering an identity crisis. They have just posted the worst financial losses in their history — £104.2million ($140.6m) pre-tax — and appear in need of a complete reboot.

Or should we linger on Forest and, specifically, the thick portfolio of evidence this season to indicate they are not equipped to have the sustained success the club undoubtedly wants?

There is a lot to unpick at the City Ground, that’s for sure, and it’s just a pity that Netflix, or one of the other fly-on-the-wall documentary-makers, was not in place to film the soap opera of Nuno’s fallout with Edu, Nuno’s sacking, Ange Postecoglou’s 39 days in charge, Sean Dyche’s hiring and firing, Vitor Pereira’s appointment and everything else that has happened in between.

For the time being, however, it was summed up to some degree by the picture that was doing the rounds on the internet recently to show the club’s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, mocked up as a guest on Would I Lie to You?, the BBC show in which participants share a wild story and everybody has to guess if it can be true.

This one had Marinakis purportedly stating: “I once sacked our best manager in the last 40 years because he didn’t get on with my mate, replaced him with (Postecoglou) who nearly sent Spurs down, only to appoint Dyche eight games in, sack him and get the guy who had less points with Wolves at Christmas than a triangle.”

Some season, indeed.

At this point, perhaps we should remind ourselves that there is still the potential for Leeds, in 15th position, to fall further into trouble and also the rather eccentric possibility, in the case of Spurs and Forest, that both clubs may yet change how this season is remembered. Tottenham are into the last 16 of the Champions League and Forest are at the same stage in the Europa League, so it is not entirely out of the question that the story can change.

All the same, it would feel a stretch, to say the least, to dress up what has happened as anything other than hugely disappointing.

Perhaps there is a wider lesson here when analysing the league table in more detail.

Look at the cluster of clubs, in particular, who are taking in the view from seventh to 12th place.

Brentford, for example, who are sitting defiantly in seventh despite losing their head coach, Thomas Frank, and two main goalscorers, Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa, last summer. Look at the way Sunderland have acclimatised during their first season back in the Premier League, reaching 40 points with Tuesday’s 1-0 win at Leeds.

Brighton & Hove Albion’s season has been tough, according to some. Yet they are still in with a decent shout of ending up in the top half of the table, having finished 11th or higher in each of the previous four years. Or see how Bournemouth have improved their position, from 15th to 12th to ninth, in the past three seasons, and may yet do so again from their current ninth spot.

The moral of the story? That it all comes from the top, and that strategic planning and shrewd leadership can be useful traits in a sport where the competition is so fierce.

Daniel Levy left his role as executive chairman at Spurs in September but will the people still in positions of power at the club take some form of responsibility for the team’s regression?

Can the hierarchy at Forest accept that it has been a season of self-sabotage?

Do the relevant people at West Ham understand that many of those protestors, wanting better for their club, make relevant criticisms?

Because if the answer is no, in any of these cases, they would be kidding themselves. And that is maybe the most important lesson for all of them here, unless the people in question are just going to continue making the same mistakes, over and over again.

Manchester United have hired Ian Broomfield as a casual scout covering the under-21 market.

Broomfield, who gained an excellent reputation for spotting talent after more than 30 years doing so, has been brought in to help United target players emerging at first-team level.

Ayden Heaven, who joined United from Arsenal aged 18 for £1.5million in February 2025, is an example of the type of player Broomfield would be expected to recruit.

Broomfield, 75, was most recently employed by Tottenham Hotspur as head of scouting, before losing his job in a reshuffle towards data in 2024. He was previously chief scout under Harry Redknapp. His extensive career in the game has also seen him lead recruitment at Leeds United and Aston Villa, under David O’Leary.

He started as a schoolboy at Bristol City and trained with an England youth squad before an Achilles injury impacted his progress. He went on to join the police force as a detective, before he returned to football in scouting at Southampton.

Broomfield attended United’s under-21 loss to Chelsea at Leigh Sports Village on Monday night.

Broomfield’s hire follows Connor Hunter being promoted to head of academy recruitment. Hunter had moved to United from Everton in 2013 and worked a variety of age-group scouting roles before being given his current role in January.

United needed to replace Luke Fedorenko who left to join agency Unique Sports Group.

United had been close to finalising a move for Paul Midgley from Newcastle United, but he ended up remaining at St James’ Park.

Jack Chapman, Tottenham’s head of academy recruitment, was also strongly considered but he decided to stay in north London.

United have been reshaping their academy since Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s investment, with Jason Wilcox as director of football providing oversight.

Wilcox was aware of Midgley and Chapman having worked with both previously, at Manchester City and Southampton respectively.

Michael Carrick goes back home on Wednesday.

There will be those who do not think of Carrick as a Geordie, given his playing career was at West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United, and Manchester has been home for the past 20 years. He does not have a thick Geordie accent. But Carrick comes from Newcastle, from Howdon in the east of the city, and his first football experiences were with the famous Wallsend Boys’ Club — the ‘Boyza’ as Carrick knew and knows them.

So while the opening lines of Carrick’s 2018 autobiography, Between the Lines, are: “I didn’t just play for Manchester United. I lived for them,” his football life originates on the streets of Newcastle by the River Tyne.

Via his very readable book, subtly ghost-written by Henry Winter, The Athletic has retraced Carrick’s Tyneside roots and his route through playing to the point when he is preparing to start his Pro Licence in January 2019. He has just been brought onto the United coaching staff by Jose Mourinho.

A lot has happened since; a lot happened before.

Early in Between the Lines, Carrick provides an evocative memory from the Wallsend Parade of 1992, when he was 11. There were, he says, “twelve of us boys singing our hearts out all the way through town on the back of a red lorry with a banner stating: ‘Wallsend Boys’ Club, suppliers to the football industry’.” The Boyza was integral to the north-east footballing landscape.

Industry and football, those were two Wallsend characteristics and remain so. On the way to and from Stephenson Primary School — school logo: Stephenson’s Rocket — Carrick would play one-twos off lamp-posts.

Carrick’s father Vince worked in nuclear power plants around Britain. His mother Lynn worked in a school and was in the Salvation Army. Carrick’s wife, Lisa, is a Geordie.

Vince was a good schoolboy footballer, represented County Durham and went on trial with Middlesbrough, the club his son would later coach. Vince also co-authored the history of Wallsend Boys. His father, Owen, had England trials at youth level. Carrick’s great-uncle John played for Millwall. On various branches of Carrick’s family tree, there is football. His brother Graeme is a coach.

Vince Carrick was an avid Newcastle fan and first took Michael to St James’ Park when Carrick was six. Vince’s favourite Newcastle player was Malcolm ‘Supermac’ Macdonald, but his favourite all-time player was George Best. VHS videos of both were staples in the Carrick household. Macdonald had departed Newcastle United by the time Michael was sitting on a concrete barrier in the then-uncovered Gallowgate End. The Brazilian Mirandinha was up front.

“That exhilaration of climbing the steps inside the Gallowgate will never leave me,” Carrick writes. That will resonate with Newcastle supporters. He was there the seismic day in 1992 when Kevin Keegan returned as manager.

Carrick, centre-forward as a boy, was attracting attention. He went on trial with Boro, guested in a tournament for Stoke City and, aged 12, was asked by Newcastle to go with their under-14s to the Milk Cup in Northern Ireland. John Carver, then academy head and later interim Newcastle manager, handed Carrick a club tracksuit and, on Carrick’s 13th birthday in July 1994, Peter Beardsley gave him a cake.

Beardsley was once of Wallsend Boys himself. When he left Newcastle for Liverpool, (whisper it at Old Trafford) Carrick began wearing Liverpool kit like his cousin Gary. Jan Molby became a Carrick favourite, as we might expect of an elegant midfielder.

Paul Gascoigne was another local hero, but Carrick was feeling the pull of West Ham. Other London clubs — Arsenal, Chelsea and Crystal Palace pursued him — but Carrick recalls telling his father West Ham were his preference. “They play two-touch football, Dad, they don’t launch it.” Even then, style was all important as the youngster mapped out his future career.

So Carrick began to take the train from Newcastle Central to King’s Cross with other boys. They would be picked up by Jimmy Hampson, West Ham’s youth development coach. Once, when Carrick’s last train back to Newcastle was cancelled, Hampson drove him the whole way home so he would not miss school the next day.

Carrick signed a two-year YTS contract on £42.50 a week and absorbed Hampson’s kindness, Tony Carr’s youth-team education and the commitment of two boys slightly older — Rio Ferdinand and Frank Lampard. Lampard’s father, Frank Snr, was an influence and West Ham showed patience when Carrick’s teenage body developed at a rate that concerned him.

They had his eyes tested when Vince thought there could be a problem. There was. “I was as blind as a bat,” Carrick says.

He loved West Ham, even the staged wrestling match with fellow apprentice Stephen Purches, whom Carrick will see on Wednesday, as Purches is part of Eddie Howe’s coaching staff.

Carrick’s debut came under Harry Redknapp at Bradford City in the Premiership, as it was then known. Carrick replaced Ferdinand late on and was praised by Redknapp for a pass to Paolo Di Canio. It was one month after turning 18, Carrick was on £400 a week, a professional — one of more than 90 who have made it from Wallsend Boys, such as Alan Shearer and, lately, Elliot Anderson.

Redknapp quickly sent Carrick on loan to Swindon Town for an eye-opening six weeks. When Carrick was brought back, Redknapp informed him he would be starting the Hammers’ next game. It was away at Newcastle.

It finished 2-2 and Carrick played all 90 minutes alongside Marc-Vivien Foe and opposite Gary Speed. He says he felt emotionally drained at half-time, and physically exhausted. But he stuck at it. “People look at my career and say nice things about composure, but I’m a fighter too. I don’t give up.”

Under Glenn Roeder, Carrick was given the No 6 shirt, which attached him to Bobby Moore. But Redknapp was gone, West Ham sold Ferdinand and, in May 2003, they were relegated with 42 points. Injured, Carrick missed the end of the season, but he was there at Birmingham City (where he’d also had a short loan) to witness the drop.

There was a fire sale but Carrick stayed. West Ham reached the Championship play-off final in May 2004, but lost to Palace. Carrick was about to turn 23 and decided to leave. The club who knocked on the door first were Newcastle. They offered £2m ($2.7m), but said the deal would have to wait until the following transfer window. Carrick found it odd and declined.

Then Portsmouth called. Pompey were in the Premier League and had Redknapp in charge. It was early August, the season looming and Carrick met Redknapp near Heathrow. It went well but, going home in the car with his agent, Arsenal chairman David Dein rang. Arsene Wenger wanted to meet Carrick.

Within an hour, he was sitting in the front room of Arsene Wenger’s house in Totteridge, north London.

It was a Friday night. Arsenal were playing Manchester United in the Community Shield in Cardiff on Sunday. Arsenal expected Patrick Vieira to leave for Real Madrid, so Wenger played a 17-year-old, Cesc Fabregas, in midfield. Fabregas excelled and even though, on the Saturday, Dein had made an offer to West Ham for Carrick, by Monday Wenger had thought twice. The Carrick deal was off.

Just as Dein’s phone call had come out of nowhere, so did the next one. It was from Frank Arnesen, Tottenham’s sporting director. Rather than signing for Arsenal on August 9, Carrick joined Spurs on August 24.

He was entitled to feel bewildered, particularly as, under Spurs’ manager Jacques Santini, he found himself training with the reserves on his first day. Carrick felt humiliated — it will give him an understanding of Kobbie Mainoo’s recent situation.

Santini was soon gone and Carrick expresses gratitude for his replacement, Martin Jol. Under Jol, Carrick made his first Spurs start in the Tottenham 4-5 Arsenal epic of November 2004 — up against Fabregas. His last came in May 2006, West Ham 2-1 Tottenham, the day of ‘Lasagne-gate’. Carrick was one of those Spurs players who was violently ill. Back at Upton Park, he lasted an hour.

At Tottenham, on and off the pitch, Carrick was enjoying himself. There is a glimpse of a future manager’s outlook when he writes: “Camaraderie goes a long way in making a team”. But defeat at West Ham meant Spurs missed out on Champions League qualification and an uncertain end to 2005-06.

At least Carrick was selected by England for the World Cup in Germany that summer. He won 34 England caps over a 14-year period under Sven-Goran Eriksson, Steve McClaren, Fabio Capello and Roy Hodgson. But, as Carrick says, he was named in 87 squads and made only seven competitive starts. He mentions how, culturally, he would have liked to have been in a Gareth Southgate England squad; interesting considering his current assistant, Steve Holland, was Southgate’s No 2.

Something significant did happen in Germany, though. Carrick’s mobile rang and the caller was Sir Alex Ferguson. The second half of Michael Carrick’s football career was underway.

On Carrick’s 25th birthday in the summer of 2006, Tottenham announced a deal had been concluded. United had offered £12m and paid £18m. Carrick notes a lot of people were unconvinced and part of him agreed when he heard Ferguson describe him as “a shy boy who needs to be shaken at times”.

The shy boy took Roy Keane’s No 16 jersey to add to Moore’s No 6.

Carrick had heard about the self-policed intensity of United’s senior players’ training, and had been so keen to feel it, contractual personal terms were secondary. He soon discovered United did not offer weekly win bonuses in the league, as they were expected to win.

Ferguson considered Carrick a Geordie, like two previous club legends Sir Bobby Charlton and Bryan Robson. Carrick noticed how Ferguson never said ‘United’, always ‘Manchester United’. His team talks always included “concentration” and “penetration” and an incessant driving of standards. After Carrick’s first United start, an away win at Watford, Ferguson strode angrily into the dressing room to shout: “I’m not having that. That’s not good enough.”

To Carrick’s surprise, Ferguson’s relentlessness included major fitness work in January. United were preparing for the months of April and May — “our time”, as players like Gary Neville called it.

And in May 2007 — Carrick’s first Old Trafford spring — United won the Premier League. His favourite match was the 1-0 win at Anfield in March; John O’Shea’s unlikely late winner. Carrick scored the opener in the 7-1 win against Roma at Old Trafford in the Champions League. He was all-in: “I’d only been there nine months but United was my religion now.”

One year on, United retained the Premier League.

Fans will look askance at his praise for the Glazer family being there the day the title was clinched at Wigan Athletic. United’s game after Wigan was the Champions League final in Moscow against Chelsea. It was 40 years since United won the European Cup for a first time and 50 since the Munich air crash. Carrick writes movingly about it, how affected he and the squad were hearing Charlton speak.

Carrick successfully took the second kick in the penalty shoot-out United won 6-5. In the happy maelstrom of Moscow, he says his thoughts returned to Wallsend Boys.

Another year on and United were in the Champions League final again, this time in Rome against Barcelona. Carrick focuses on his mis-placed header which Andres Iniesta seized upon. Instantly, Samuel Eto’o made it 1-0. It ended 2-0 and Carrick says his playing hangover lasted a year. He talks of depression, of wanting to exit a profession he loved; 2009-10 was his worst season.

But by May 2011, United and Barcelona were meeting in the final again. Again Barcelona won. Carrick accepts this, as here was peak Pep Guardiola-Barca with Lionel Messi, Xavi, Sergio Busquets and Iniesta all starring.

May 2012 brought further pain — Sergio Aguero winning the Premier League title in the last seconds of the season to pip United on goal difference. United were at Sunderland that day and Carrick’s Newcastle-ness comes through. Most significant, though, is his memory of Ferguson walking down the team bus afterwards saying: “Don’t you ever forget what this feels like.”

Unknown to all, Ferguson was entering his last season at Old Trafford. United, inspired by the previous May and by the signing of Robin van Persie, won it with ease and Carrick takes particular pleasure from the game at Queens Park Rangers when he heard the chant: “It’s Carrick, you know, it’s hard to believe it’s not Scholes.” He treasures the compliment.

In Ferguson’s last-ever match in May 2013 — 5-5 at West Bromwich Albion — Carrick was captain. He then signed a new contract under Ferguson’s successor, David Moyes. Carrick does not lay responsibility totally with Moyes for that 2013-14 season. In came Louis van Gaal with his precision and discipline, which Carrick appreciated, but not Van Gaal’s sometimes mechanical attitude to training.

Carrick learned under Van Gaal and notes being pushed back to centre-half for a league game at Anfield that United won. He is less pleased with a collective selfie United took afterwards.

With Dutch bluntness, Van Gaal had informed Carrick that the 2016 FA Cup final would be Carrick’s last match. Wayne Rooney and Carrick lifted the trophy together but in the dressing room, news began to filter that it was, in fact, Van Gaal’s last United match.

Van Gaal’s successor, Mourinho, telephoned Carrick to say he wanted to give him a new contract. Approaching 35, Carrick signed without hesitation. He was made captain again.

But during his first game of the 2017-18 season, against Burton Albion in the League Cup, Carrick suddenly sensed his body buckling. It turned out he had an abnormal heart rhythm; he was taken to hospital in an ambulance.

In late November, a club announcement revealed the issue publicly. Carrick resumed training and reappeared for the first team at Yeovil in the FA Cup in 2018. But he was 36 and knew his career was coming to a close.

There was one last away appearance in the Premier League — at St James’ Park — and a last-day match against Watford at Old Trafford. Carrick was given a guard of honour. The next morning, there was a text from Mourinho about that week’s coaching plan. Carrick was off into this new direction.

“A decent player doesn’t automatically make a decent manager, I know that,” he says.

Acknowledging as much will stand him in good stead, but he looks pretty decent at the minute. In seven games as United’s manager, Carrick has six wins and a draw. When he succeeded Ruben Amorim, United were seventh with 32 points; today they are third with 51 points.

Carrick has faced West Ham and Tottenham and now it is Newcastle, St James’ and memories of Wallsend blowing down the big river. He may have left the area but he is far from disconnected — Carrick’s Foundation funds the post of general manager at Wallsend Boys.

Ultimately, re-reading ‘Between the Lines’ brings reminders of the richness of Carrick’s experience. With his natural football intelligence and personal maturity, he should make a very good manager as much as a coach. Yet after an impressive beginning at Middlesbrough, last season was an injury-hit puzzle that faded out.

All is hardly perfect at Old Trafford, but Carrick has galvanised a drifting squad into, so far, winners. There are 10 games left. How he would like spring 2026 to be “our time” for Manchester United again. He certainly will not want a first loss to be in front of the Gallowgate End he was once part of.

Welcome to week 29 of The Athletic’s Premier League predictions challenge, where it’s starting to look like a straight fight between the subscribers and young Wilfred.

Wilfred continues to predict scores with a wisdom far beyond his six years — and far, far beyond my 50 — while one subscriber after another keeps coming up trumps.

Last week was the turn of Adam, a Newcastle United fan from Kildare, Ireland. Adam got two scorelines right and another three results right to maintain the subscribers’ sudden title charge.

But Wilfred got two of Sunday’s games spot-on (Fulham 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United 2-1 Crystal Palace) to keep his four-point lead intact.

Each week since the season began in August, four of us — Wilfred, a guest subscriber, an algorithm and I — have been predicting the Premier League results with varying degrees of success.

We are awarding three points for a correct scoreline and one for a correct result. There’s also a bonus point for any correct “unique” prediction, so Adam picked up an extra point for the subscribers because he was the only one to predict Brighton & Hove Albion’s win over Nottingham Forest.

Having led the table for much of the campaign, I find myself in freefall. I got six correct results at the weekend, but I’ve barely picked a correct scoreline in weeks.

To sum it up, I picked four of Saturday’s five games to end up 2-1 — and none of them did. I picked none of Sunday’s four games to end up 2-1 — and all of them did.

Even the algorithm got two of Sunday’s 2-1s spot-on and suddenly I’m looking over my shoulder and wondering whether I’m in danger of finishing last. That would not be a good look.

Still, another week brings another opportunity for redemption (or further humiliation)… and another guest subscriber. This week, we have Derian, a 27-year-old Chelsea fan from New York City. Take it away, Derian.

Our subscriber’s match of the week

Tottenham Hotspur vs Crystal Palace, Thursday, 8pm UK/3pm ET

Derian says: More for the off-field narrative than the promise of on-pitch entertainment, this London derby tops the midweek billing. Can Tottenham Hotspur stave off relegation? Will Oliver Glasner's uneasy truce with Crystal Palace fans hold? Expect hard running, a red card, some wild shots — and a 1-0 win for Spurs.

Tottenham 1-0 Crystal Palace

Oli says: If Wednesday’s results go anything like I’ve predicted (spoiler: they won’t), then Tottenham will still be two places and four points above the relegation zone when they kick off on Thursday evening. If Nottingham or West Ham have picked up a win, it really will be panic stations. Spurs were abject in defeat at Fulham on Sunday, the type of performance that demands a response. This fixture offers an opportunity for that — against a Crystal Palace team who are drifting — but even so, my prediction of a home win feels a little wild.

Tottenham 2-1 Crystal Palace

Oli’s other predictions

Everton vs Burnley

Every time Everton drop points, there’s a flurry of anti-David Moyes sentiment on social media. But they’re eighth in the table, higher than they have finished in any of the previous six seasons (and higher than just about anyone predicted last summer), so he’s clearly getting a lot right. What he and Everton really need is to start winning at their new stadium, where they have taken just two points from their past six games. This is a good opportunity against a Burnley side whose laudable spirit might be dampened by the agonising nature of their 4-3 defeat by Brentford.

Everton 2-0 Burnley

Bournemouth vs Brentford

Are Bournemouth the new Brighton? And are Brentford the new Bournemouth? Both teams have surpassed every expectation again this season despite selling key players (and in Brentford’s case, losing an influential coach, Thomas Frank). Brentford are only two points behind sixth-placed Chelsea, which seems absurd. It’s hard to predict which way this game will fall, but it should be lively.

Bournemouth 1-2 Brentford

Leeds United vs Sunderland

Manchester City’s 1-0 win on Saturday was Leeds’ first defeat in an evening kick-off at Elland Road in 25 league/play-off games. They were unfortunate against City, too. Games under the floodlights seem to energise Leeds’ supporters and players, and they will know that, despite their huge improvement over the past three months, they need more points on the board. Sunderland look stronger for Granit Xhaka’s return, but they should be braced for a tough evening.

Leeds 2-1 Sunderland

Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Liverpool

Opta’s ‘supercomputer’ calculates that, after an upturn under Rob Edwards, underlined by their impressive victory over Aston Villa on Friday, Wolves have a chance of avoiding relegation. The chance in question is a mere 0.02 per cent, but still… ‘So you’re telling me there’s a chance?’ This is a strange situation because they are at home to Liverpool in the Premier League on Tuesday and then in the FA Cup on Friday. Is there a case for Edwards resting key players on Tuesday and going full-strength in the FA Cup? There might be, actually.

Wolves 0-2 Liverpool

Brighton & Hove Albion vs Arsenal

Winning while playing poorly is said to be the hallmark of champions, but that 2-1 victory over Chelsea on Sunday left me questioning (slightly) my long-held belief that Arsenal will win the Premier League. It was a poor performance and, again, I felt the main concern was not one of ‘bottle’, as the popular narrative suggests, but of a low-risk approach that turns almost every game into a scrap. So often, there is a lack of freedom and variety in their play. Tension has come to engulf every Arsenal match, particularly at the Emirates Stadium, so a trip to the Amex — not the most intense of arenas — might feel like a welcome change of scenery. But Brighton are back on form after back-to-back wins, so it threatens to be another slog.

Brighton 1-2 Arsenal

Manchester City vs Nottingham Forest

A report last week revealed that Manchester City’s players have covered more distance per game than any other team in the Premier League this season. Four of their players (Phil Foden, Bernardo Silva, Nico Gonzalez and Tijjani Reijnders) were in the top 10 for distance covered per 90 minutes. Watching them at Leeds on Saturday night, it was their work rate — more than their more recognised qualities — that stuck out. This is far from the most scintillating of Pep Guardiola’s teams, but their attitude is spot-on. Forest were 19th on that list, one place above Chelsea. Vitor Pereira's side look tired from their Europa League exertions and could be given the runaround on Wednesday.

Manchester City 3-0 Nottingham Forest

Fulham vs West Ham United

West Ham have looked much better over the past six weeks, but it is worrying that they a) have failed to capitalise on winning positions and b) conceded five goals on Saturday to a Liverpool side who didn’t really do anything special. They really need to start making games like this count because they don’t pick up enough points at home. The difficulty is that Fulham have won back-to-back games and look like they’re enjoying themselves again. West Ham seem to have forgotten what enjoyment is.

Fulham 2-1 West Ham

Aston Villa vs Chelsea

Aston Villa’s season: 0.4 points per game for the first five, 2.76 points per game for the next 13, 1.2 points per game for the last 10. For what looks, on paper, to be an eminently sensible team, who have averaged a perfectly reasonable 1.82 points per game over that period, that is wild. Logically, top-five form is somewhere between 1.7 and 1.9 points per game. If they perform anywhere near that level between now and the end of the campaign, they should make next season’s Champions League, whereas Chelsea, six points adrift of Villa, need to find a level of consistency that has looked beyond them. Both of them have a tough run of games coming up. Chelsea’s greater need might lead them to risk more here in the hope of making up lost ground.

Aston Villa 1-2 Chelsea

Newcastle United vs Manchester United

It’s five defeats in six Premier League matches for Newcastle and now comes a succession of big tests: Manchester United, Chelsea and local rivals Sunderland in the Premier League, punctuated by an FA Cup fifth-round tie with Manchester City and home and away clashes with Barcelona in the Champions League. Playing two games a week, due to their cup commitments, has really hit them hard, whereas Manchester United, particularly since Michael Carrick took over from Ruben Amorim, have benefited from a lighter schedule. After three consecutive league defeats at St James’ Park, Newcastle need a response. I suspect they’ll come out swinging.

Newcastle 2-2 Manchester United

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.