The New York Times

Last month, Tottenham Hotspur’s chief executive, Vinai Venkatesham, effectively laid the blame for the club’s plight squarely at the door of former executive chairman Daniel Levy.

In a meeting with the club’s Fan Advisory Board (FAB) in early March, Venkatesham revealed that an internal review had highlighted a catalogue of failings during the Levy era, including “insufficient focus… on on-pitch success”; “a wage structure and player transaction approach that had impacted competitiveness in the transfer market”; a squad “lacking quality, experience and leadership”; and “an internal culture requiring improvement”.

The message from Venkatesham, who is the closest thing to a direct Levy replacement in the club’s current hierarchy, was clear. Like a new government blaming the country’s decline on the previous administration, Venkatesham felt he had inherited a mess that he and his colleagues were now working to clean up. (This political analogy does not quite work because, with or without Levy, ENIC is still the club’s majority owner, even if the individuals involved have rebranded to ‘the Lewis family’.)

For his part, it is easy to imagine that Levy — now removed from the day-to-day melodrama at Spurs — might believe he has been proven right in spectacularly quick time. In his final interview at Spurs — released in early August, a month before he was sacked by the Lewis family — Levy told Gary Neville on The Overlap: “When I’m not here, I’m sure I’ll get the credit.”

So, is Venkatesham right that Levy’s failings are the reason for the club’s historically bad campaign, or has Levy been vindicated in his claim that supporters would miss him?

It is a complex question, but the worse Spurs’ season gets, the more fans are wondering about Levy’s legacy, as well as the short-term impact of his stunning sacking in September.

Assessing Levy’s culpability for Tottenham’s demise should not be confused with wondering if this year may have turned out differently if he had remained in post. To address the latter, there is a compelling case that Spurs would not be in the bottom three with six league games to play with Levy still in charge.

Perhaps the single biggest mistake made by the club’s current decision-makers — namely Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange — was failing to dismiss Thomas Frank as head coach sooner. It was apparent to many observers by the end of November, during which Spurs had lost to rivals Chelsea and Arsenal in the meekest fashion imaginable, that Frank’s time as manager needed to end.

It was increasingly obvious by mid-December, when Spurs suffered the first of two 3-0 thrashings by Nottingham Forest this season, and by January it was completely unavoidable. Frank, though, was not sacked by Venkatesham and Lange until February 11, having been allowed to preside over the winter transfer window (a disaster) and eight straight league games without a win, which set Spurs on course for a relegation battle.

No doubt about it, Levy would have acted sooner, not least because the ire of supporters would so obviously have been directed at him. In Levy’s absence, Frank acted as the lightning rod for supporter dissatisfaction and a useful shield for Vivienne and Charles Lewis, Nick Beucher (all three of whom many Spurs fans would struggle to recognise in the street), and Venkatesham.

Had Levy still been in place, he would inevitably have been the object of fans’ fury. It is not hard to imagine more protests on the High Road and the majority of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium united in strains of ‘We want Levy out’ as Frank’s side slumped to one of their many grim home results over the winter.

Had Levy been able to sack Frank after, say, the defeat at Forest on December 14, there would still have been ample time for Spurs to save — or at least stabilise — their season. They could have pipped Manchester United to the appointment of Michael Carrick as a try-before-you-buy option until the end of the campaign.

Even if Levy had listened to his ally Fabio Paratici, the club’s former co-sporting director with Lange, and moved for Igor Tudor before the turn of the year, there might have been time for the Croatian’s hardline approach to make a positive impact on the squad. Venkatesham and Lange did not turn to Tudor as a replacement for Frank until February 14, after Paratici had left the club and when Spurs were firmly entrenched in a doom loop.

For all his shortcomings — and more on them shortly — Levy was rarely slow to dismiss a coach if the fans had turned and the situation was becoming ugly, and he would surely not have been frozen with indecision in the same way as Venkatesham and Lange as results hurtled south under Frank.

That is not to say that Spurs would have enjoyed a successful season under Levy — they would still have had a limited squad, an unsuitable coach, and injuries to James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski — but there’s good reason to think it might have been miserable and underwhelming, rather than catastrophic.

However, acknowledging that Levy is unlikely to have allowed the current season to become so dire should do nothing to decrease his share of the blame for Spurs’ predicament. In fact, there is a case that Levy remains the single most culpable individual for the mess that Spurs find themselves in – even if their worst campaign in decades has not happened on his watch.

If they are to be relegated for the first time since 1977, it will have been Levy’s decisions which set the direction of travel for one of the biggest underperformances in the history of the English top flight.

The thin and imbalanced squad inherited by Frank, Levy’s 13th and final permanent managerial appointment, was assembled on Levy’s watch, the result of years of hubris and corner-cutting in the market, and the former chairman’s habit of lurching between strategies, styles and personnel.

The “culture in need of improvement”, identified by Venkatesham’s review and so many of Spurs’ previous managers, was surely set from the top down by Levy, who always appeared more interested in the business side of the club than the football.

For all the transformative work Levy did to elevate Spurs financially, the club has been in sharp decline since at least 2019, and there are myriad decisions and strategies — from sacking Mauricio Pochettino to wasting generational talent Harry Kane — that all come back to him.

Levy’s leaves an impressive bricks-and-mortar legacy in the form of the stadium and training ground but he also laid the foundations for what has happened on the pitch this term – even if his successors will thank him for the relegation clauses inserted into most players’ contracts, should Spurs go down.

Venkatesham’s assessment to the FAB last month was short on accountability for the current decision-makers, including himself, but was actually an insightful summary of the club’s historic failings, in line with what many supporters have been saying for years.

Sources close to Levy, who preferred to remain anonymous, declined to comment when contacted for this column but pointed out that Levy was constantly restricted in his running of the club by ENIC.

And Lewises do deserve a significant share of the blame, too. While they have tried to present themselves as a fresh start, ENIC allowed Levy to run the club as he wanted for nearly a quarter of a century, tacitly or directly approving his every decision.

For his part Venkatesham has done precious little to correct the mistakes identified by his review since assuming control, during a season characterised by inaction, missteps and a woeful lack of leadership from the top.

As Spurs slide towards the Championship, there is therefore plenty of blame to go around.

Levy, though, arguably stands as the chief architect of Spurs’ woes, even if he is unlikely to have allowed this season to reach such a historic low.

The lack of quality in Tottenham Hotspur’s central midfield has been a problem since the beginning of the season when then-head coach Thomas Frank experimented with the unpopular partnership of Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur. The pair provided a solid base in August’s UEFA Super Cup penalty shootout defeat to Paris Saint-Germain and the early-season win at Manchester City, but over time their inability to progress the ball was exposed.

The youthful trio of Pape Matar Sarr, Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall excelled in the opening day victory over Burnley but were bizarrely never given another chance. Frank and his replacement Igor Tudor tried lots of alternative combinations yet failed to identify the perfect blend.

Roberto De Zerbi trialled Conor Gallagher, Gray and Bergvall together in his first game against Sunderland and they had a limited impact. Following their 1-0 defeat at the Stadium of Light last weekend, former Liverpool defender turned television pundit Jamie Carragher did not hold back in his criticism.

“They have got quality players but a lot of the attacking ones are injured,” Carragher said on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football. “They have got a back four. Cristian Romero is out but you have Micky van de Ven in there, top defender, and the two full-backs who are decent as well. The one area I look at (is) in terms of central midfield.

“West Ham have a better central midfield than Tottenham, so do Nottingham Forest and so do Leeds. That is my one big worry. (De Zerbi) needs to fix the midfield. It has been a problem for three managers already.”

Former Manchester United captain Roy Keane poured more fuel on the fire.

“Are (the midfielders) really good going forward? Are they a real goal threat? No, not really,” he said. “They are not technically great and good at getting on the half-turn. Are they amazing defensively? They are not great at that either.”

It sounds harsh but Keane and Carragher’s comments expose the brutal reality. Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison have not played a single minute this season due to injury and their team-mates have struggled to cope with their absence.

They now have six games left to save Spurs from relegation and redeem themselves.

None of Tottenham’s midfielders have started more than 19 league games this season. Bentancur played regularly under Frank until he suffered a hamstring injury in January but the rest have bounced in and out of the team.

It is a totally different scenario at Tottenham’s relegation rivals, all of whom have enjoyed far more settled midfields this season.

Elliot Anderson has started all 32 of Nottingham Forest’s league fixtures, while Morgan Gibbs-White has only been left out of the line-up once. Ibrahim Sangare has started 22 matches in total including the last 11 since he returned from representing Ivory Coast at the Africa Cup of Nations.

At West Ham, Mateus Fernandes has been regularly partnered by Tomas Soucek since Lucas Paqueta returned to Flamengo in January. Leeds, meanwhile, have rotated around Anton Stach depending upon the opposition’s strengths. Leeds, West Ham and Forest have a solid midfield core they can rely upon but Tottenham’s has been inconsistent and unstable as demonstrated by the graphic below.

The situation has not been helped by the managerial upheaval. The players have been given different responsibilities under Frank, Tudor and De Zerbi.

For example, Frank started Bergvall on the left of a 4-2-2-2 system in December’s defeat to Liverpool. A week later, the Swede operated as a No 10 in a 4-2-3-1 set-up which led to a 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace.

Spurs have a higher average share of possession (49.7 per cent) than their relegation rivals. The problem is that they never look comfortable on the ball and lack incisiveness.

Forest enjoy a lower share of the ball (47.4 per cent) but have a higher average passes per sequence, which suggests they are more composed and better at stitching moves together.

Forest lead the relegation candidates for line-breaking passes per 90 with 50.5, underlining their creativity and ability to split open opposition defences.

Spurs, meanwhile, have one of the worst records in the division (43.4).

While West Ham are bottom in the above chart, they have a clear identity under former Spurs boss Nuno Espirito Santo that relies less on controlled periods of possession. They are designed to soak up pressure before hitting opponents on the counter through the speed of wingers Jarrod Bowen and Crysencio Summerville. West Ham registered five fast breaks in last week’s 4-0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers, and that is the joint-highest of any team in a Premier League game this season.

Of the four teams fighting to avoid going down with Burnley and Wolves, Spurs only have one player in the top 10 for chances created by midfielders. Stach leads the way (58) with Gibbs-White (48), Anderson (44) and Fernandes (32) further behind. Xavi Simons is next in line (30) despite only starting 17 games and missing three matches through suspension. No other central midfielder is in double figures for Spurs, which makes Tudor and De Zerbi’s decision to name Xavi on the bench for their last four games even more confusing.

Xavi has been a rare bright spark but is not completely blameless. One goal in 26 appearances is a poor return for the Dutchman, who scored 10 times for RB Leipzig in the German top flight last season. The 22-year-old needed time to adapt to the physicality of English football after joining Spurs in late August when the season had already started. Gibbs-White, who Spurs tried to sign from Forest before switching their attention to Eberechi Eze and then Xavi, has scored nine goals.

Gallagher has underperformed since he arrived from Atletico Madrid in January for £34.7million. The England international developed a reputation as a box-crashing midfielder during previous spells with Chelsea and Crystal Palace but his only goal contribution in 10 appearances is an assist for Dominic Solanke in February’s 2-2 draw with Manchester City. In his press conference before Sunderland, De Zerbi said of Gallagher: “I want to see again the same player I loved at Chelsea.”

“He was a leader in Chelsea, and now he has to adapt to a new club, to new teammates, to a new stadium, to a new everything,” the Italian added. Encouraging Gallagher to push further forward might be a solution to Spurs’ troubles in front of goals. They are the lowest-scoring side in the division in 2026, with just 13 goals in 14 matches.

Unlike his predecessors, De Zerbi needs to quickly identify the midfield combination that is going to give Spurs the best chance of winning their remaining matches. There is talent within the current crop, but they have been poorly assembled and do not complement each other. It is an area of the squad which requires urgent attention in the summer transfer window, however Tottenham’s season ends.

Tottenham Hotspur are in advanced talks to sign Bournemouth defender Marcos Senesi this summer, subject to maintaining their Premier League status.

The north London club are currently the leading contender to sign the 28-year-old centre-back — who will become a free agent in July — although no deal has been finalised and the Argentine’s situation remains open with ongoing interest from other clubs.

Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven have been Tottenham’s first-choice central defensive partnership for the past three campaigns, with Radu Dragusin and Kevin Danso the other recognised centre-backs in Roberto De Zerbi’s squad.

Tottenham are also in pole position to sign Andy Robertson as a free agent when the left-back’s Liverpool contract expires this summer, but the club’s business will be conditioned by De Zerbi’s side avoiding relegation to the Championship.

Spurs are currently 18th in the Premier League table and two points from safety with seven games of the campaign remaining.

Earlier this week, meanwhile, it was confirmed that head coach Andoni Iraola will leave Bournemouth when his contract expires at the end of this season.

Senesi, whose deal at the south-coast club also expires this summer, joined Bournemouth from Dutch side Feyenoord for £10.5million (now $14.2m) in 2022.

The left-footed centre-back was a regular starter during his first two seasons at Bournemouth but a hamstring injury and the emergence of Dean Huijsen and Illia Zabarnyi as Iraola’s first-choice partnership at the back saw his appearances limited in 2024-25.

Huijsen and Zabarnyi’s departures in the summer, to Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain respectively, have seen Senesi restored to a first-choice role, featuring in 30 league matches this term.

His resurgence in form has seen him feature twice for Argentina this season.

Move casts doubt on Romero, Van de Ven futures

Analysis by Jay Harris

Romero’s future is going to be a hot topic of conversation this summer regardless of what division Spurs will be competing in next season. The Argentina international signed a new long-term contract and was appointed captain last year but he has voiced his frustration at the club’s senior figures on multiple occasions. It might make sense for all parties to arrange an exit even if Tottenham maintain their top-flight status.

One of Romero’s biggest strengths is his quality on the ball and this is where Spurs’ pursuit of Senesi makes sense. Senesi is excellent at playing defence-splitting passes as shown by his clever reverse ball in the build-up to Eli Junior Kroupi’s goal for Bournemouth against Arsenal last weekend.

Senesi is left-footed which raises questions about the long-term future of Van de Ven. In an ideal world, Senesi and Van de Ven would rotate to avoid the injury problems which have plagued Spurs over the last two years. However, Spurs will not be competing in Europe next season which will significantly reduce the amount of matches they play.

Senesi turns 29 next month but he could be a good short to medium-term option and it is an attractive deal because no fee will be required as his contract expires in June. Spurs were slow to act in the transfer market last summer because of the uncertainty around whether they would be competing in the Champions League and the future of then-head coach Ange Postecoglou.

Despite their precarious position in the table, Spurs are planning for life in the top-flight next season and trying to move quickly. Defence has clearly been identified as an area which needs urgent attention as they are also pursuing a deal for Liverpool full-back Robertson.

Guglielmo Vicario’s impending return from a hernia operation has presented Tottenham Hotspur’s new head coach, Roberto De Zerbi, with an awkward dilemma.

Vicario has been their first-choice goalkeeper since he arrived in north London from Italian side Empoli in June 2023 for £17.2million ($23.3m). The 29-year-old is capable of producing fantastic saves, but he has underperformed this season.

Many thought Antonin Kinsky might never play for Spurs again following a calamitous display in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 against Atletico Madrid, when he was substituted after conceding three goals in the opening 15 minutes, but Vicario’s injury presented him with an unlikely second chance. Spurs lost 1-0 to Sunderland last weekend in De Zerbi’s first game and Kinsky did not look overwhelmed.

The 23-year-old’s calmness in possession and expansive passing range make him a more natural fit for De Zerbi’s intricate style of play.

Spurs host De Zerbi’s former employers, Brighton & Hove Albion, on Saturday. There is a huge amount of pressure to win and escape the relegation zone. De Zerbi has to decide whether Vicario’s experience is more important than Kinsky’s quality on the ball.

Here, our Tottenham writers Elias Burke and Jay Harris make the cases for who the Italian should trust for this crucial fixture and the rest of the season.

Kinsky suits De Zerbi’s style

There was a moment early on in last weekend’s defeat against Sunderland when Granit Xhaka, who was initially in the box for a corner, ran over to take delivery duty so he could test Kinsky’s resolve with an in-swinging cross.

Kinsky dealt with the viciously curling ball, tipping it over the bar just as it threatened to creep in at the far post.

It served as his ‘I’m good’ moment, or the first symbolic scene in his redemption arc, and he was imperious for the rest of the game. Even if his mistakes in Madrid linger in the minds of opposition players — who will continue putting him under pressure to challenge his fortitude — and the collective football consciousness, his performance away at Sunderland suggested Kinsky, in the mould of a top goalkeeper, has the self-confidence to put those errors behind him.

One swallow does not make a summer. Kinsky will need many more assured performances like the one at the Stadium of Light to convince the fans, and possibly his team-mates, that he can be relied upon. That would not be unreasonable, considering there’s a fair argument that he was at fault for four of the last six goals he has conceded.

But against Brighton, the club where De Zerbi opted to prioritise distribution over top-level experience in dropping Robert Sanchez for Jason Steele, Kinsky should keep his place.

With Cristian Romero set to miss the remainder of the season with a knee injury, Kinsky’s incisive passing from defence is even more important. By almost every metric, Tottenham’s injured captain has been the club’s best passer this season. He has the vision to find players in space in the middle of the pitch, and the technical quality to execute those balls through the lines.

Even with Romero in the side, Spurs have been one of the league’s worst teams in possession this term, and that will only worsen without the Argentinian. Evidenced last Sunday, where his willingness and capacity to chip passes over opposition lines and fire them to team-mates under pressure, Kinsky can help bridge that gap.

His pass out wide, leading to a good Dominic Solanke chance shortly before half-time, was one Vicario may not have the capacity to make. While we’re unlikely to see many of the subtle tweaks De Zerbi would want to implement this season due to a lack of time on the training pitch and Tottenham’s perilous situation, the larger idea of placing faith in every player’s ability to be confident and assured in possession suits Kinsky much more than Vicario.

He performed solidly with his hands, too, including a smart close-range stop from Brian Brobbey in the first half, and bears no responsibility for Nordi Mukiele’s deflected winner.

Undoubtedly, snubbing the tried-and-tested No 1 for such a crucial match would be risky and bold, but Vicario has performed poorly for months.

Regardless, if ever there was a coach to be risky and bold in a moment like this, it’s De Zerbi.

Elias Burke

Go with Vicario, the leader

Kinsky’s admirers have never moved on from his promising debut in the first leg of last season’s Carabao Cup semi-final against Liverpool. The Czech Republic Under-21 international exuded confidence and produced a couple of superb saves to keep a clean sheet. But since then, he has made 13 further appearances and only four of them have come during this campaign.

Everybody focuses on what happened against Atletico Madrid but Kinsky did not cover himself in glory in October’s 2-0 defeat at Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup, either. The goalkeeper’s poor positioning and weakness at claiming crosses were exposed by Nick Woltemade’s second-half header. It is not Kinsky’s fault that his development has been mismanaged — he clearly would have benefited from a loan — but throwing him in at the deep end now would not solve his or Tottenham’s issues.

Vicario’s performances have been erratic, and he can be overly emotional, but he has made lots of world-class saves. These moments are forgotten because Spurs concede so many chances and he is powerless to stop every single shot.

The Italy international’s stunning fingertip save to deny Cody Gakpo helped Spurs win a point at Liverpool last month that could be vital to their chances of survival. He somehow clawed away Rayan Cherki’s fierce drive in February’s 2-2 draw with Manchester City. In the second leg against Atletico, Vicario showed remarkable reaction skills to push Giuliano Simeone’s volley, which took a deflection off Romero, over the bar.

He almost single-handedly repelled Monaco in October as Spurs earned an important away point, which helped them finish in the top eight and avoid the competition’s play-off round. Maybe the biggest criticism you could level at Vicario is that he has saved his best performances for Europe — an accusation that could be levelled at most of the squad — when Spurs desperately need him to keep a few more clean sheets in the Premier League.

There have been some questionable moments from Vicario, including his meek attempt to push away Dominik Szoboszlai’s free kick for Liverpool, but his underlying hernia issue provides some mitigation.

Kinsky is probably the better fit long-term, but De Zerbi told the club’s website last week that “it’s not the right moment to speak about my philosophy”, reducing the need for a ball-playing goalkeeper.

“We have no time to work too much on more principles, but we have to know what we have to do on the pitch,” De Zerbi added. “We have to have a good organisation on the pitch with the ball, without the ball.”

Spurs need a goalkeeper prepared to put everything on the line and hold their team-mates to account. Vicario, who is a member of the dressing room’s senior leadership group, ticks more boxes than Kinsky.

Jay Harris

Welcome back to The Athletic’s relegation battle tracker, where our data and tactics writers examine the key trends behind the fight for Premier League survival.

It was all change in the bottom half last weekend as statement wins from West Ham United and Leeds United plunged others — including Tottenham Hotspur — deeper into trouble.

With the help of Opta’s supercomputer, allow our analysts to assess the latest twists and turns.

What has changed since the last gameweek?

There has been a reshuffle in the relegation zone.

West Ham put pressure on Spurs with a Friday night thumping of Wolverhampton Wanderers, lifting themselves into 17th place before Spurs’ trip to Sunderland on Sunday afternoon. Spurs failed to respond, tepidly losing 1-0 at the Stadium of Light and adding further misery to their season. They have registered the fewest Premier League points (five) in 2026, with no team scoring fewer (13 goals) or conceding more (28) since the turn of the year.

Nottingham Forest can be quietly pleased with their 1-1 draw with Aston Villa, extending their unbeaten run to four games. They rode their luck defensively against Unai Emery’s side, but Forest are starting to offer a consistent attacking threat, logging an expected goals (xG) of one or more in seven of their past eight league games.

Meanwhile, Leeds pulled further away from the drop after a deserved 2-1 victory over Manchester United. Their first win at Old Trafford since 1981 takes Daniel Farke’s side six points clear of the relegation zone with six games remaining, but the context of those remaining fixtures is revealing.

Leeds play each side in the bottom four, meaning they not only have an opportunity to pull themselves further from the drop, but they can also have a huge say in which teams might be relegated to the Championship next season.

Who is looking stronger?

With each passing week, West Ham more accurately resemble a classic Nuno Espirito Santo side — spirited in defence and incisive on the counter, while maximising set pieces and pace out wide to cause damage with their minimal ball possession.

Friday’s 4-0 win over Wolves saw them register five shots from fast breaks, the joint-most of any team in a single Premier League game this season. One counter-attack saw Jarrod Bowen drive inside and smash a shot against the far post, while their crucial second goal came from a clinical breakaway, as Crysencio Summerville snapped into a challenge and set bustling strikers Taty Castellanos and Pablo away.

In addition to those pitch-sweeping attacks, West Ham were dominant in the penalty area from corners and wide free kicks, as towering centre-back Konstantinos Mavropanos helped himself to a double. Four of their last eight goals have come from set pieces, with the playstyle wheel below outlining the team’s steady transformation into an efficient attacking side, much like Forest when they were pushing for the top four under Nuno last season.

Though their remaining fixtures are not straightforward, they look well-equipped to soak up pressure and nick precious points over the next six games.

The standout performance of the week, however, belonged to Leeds at arch-rivals Manchester United.

Until Monday night, Farke’s survival blueprint had been built on pragmatic, defence-first foundations. The head coach’s approach was inching Leeds towards safety through a succession of low-scoring draws, but it was also leaving them worryingly blunt in attack. Before their trip to Old Trafford, no side had scored fewer Premier League goals per 90 minutes in 2026 than Leeds’ 0.92.

Perhaps it was all part of an elaborate long con, a tactical ruse to lull Manchester United into a false sense of security. Leeds flew out of the traps, adopting an aggressive, front-foot approach that stunned their opponents.

In particular, wing-backs Gabriel Gudmundsson and Jayden Bogle wreaked havoc with their relentless overlapping runs and crosses into the box, with Leeds completing five crosses in the first half, their joint-most this season. Even those that missed their target carried danger, with Okafor’s fifth-minute opener stemming from a Bogle cross that Leny Yoro failed to fully clear under pressure from Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Okafor’s two goals were just reward for an utterly dominant first half, with Leeds generating 2.1 xG (above), their most in the opening 45 minutes this season. By releasing the attacking handbrake, Farke masterminded Leeds’ most memorable display this season, steering them clear of any real relegation danger.

Who has the tougher upcoming schedule?

Are Leeds out of the woods?

Based on Opta’s Power Rankings, they have the easiest run-in of any team in the division — never mind their relegation rivals. Home victories against Wolves and Burnley should be enough to confirm Premier League status for next season, potentially rendering subsequent clashes with Spurs and West Ham irrelevant to their own relegation battle.

Burnley’s tricky end to the season will only rub further salt into their wounds as they become further cut adrift with every passing week.

The real interest lies between the other three teams, with West Ham’s upcoming games deemed the most challenging. They face trips to Crystal Palace, Brentford and Newcastle United.

Fixtures are one thing, but momentum is far more important at this stage. With Spurs’ morale plummeting, their upcoming games suddenly look far trickier than Opta suggests.

Former head coach Thomas Frank said the club is “like a supertanker turning in the right direction” before his dismissal a month later. With only six games remaining, a speedboat is required to pivot quickly towards a better outlook.

What does the supercomputer say?

An advanced statistical simulation model has stumbled upon a staggering discovery: Tottenham are in trouble.

While blindingly obvious to despairing Spurs fans, Opta’s supercomputer quantifies the precise level of gloom that hangs over the north London club. For the first time this season, they are deemed the most likely candidates to fill the final relegation spot (Opta already considers Wolves and Burnley near-certainties to go down), at 49.1 per cent.

The graphic below shows how precipitous their decline has been. At the start of February, their chances were still estimated at less than one per cent, as they held a nine-point buffer to the drop zone. Since then, they have picked up just two points.

Meanwhile, Leeds’ relegation chances have followed almost the opposite trajectory, tumbling from 63.8 per cent at the end of November to just 1.6 per cent after their statement win at Old Trafford. Farke’s side are not quite in flip-flop, sun-lounger territory just yet, but they are in a far more comfortable position than the teams beneath them.

Tottenham’s primary rivals in the relegation fight are West Ham (39.3 per cent), who are in greater peril than Forest (10.1 per cent), with Vitor Pereira’s side continuing to steadily pick up points.

Among all the miserable moments and images that have defined Tottenham Hotspur’s season, one of the most striking came in the second half at Sunderland on Sunday.

Cristian Romero, Spurs’ captain, left the field at the Stadium of Light in tears, consoled by almost every one of his team-mates in turn. Pape Matar Sarr kept a caring arm on him, Randal Kolo Muani tried to encourage him, and Micky van de Ven kissed him on the back of the head.

Everyone knew what a painful moment it was for Romero. It was written all over his face.

Romero had injured his knee colliding with Spurs goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky after Brian Brobbey had pushed Romero in the back as he tried to shield the ball. Kinsky was down receiving lengthy medical treatment and had his forehead wrapped up with a black bandage. But ultimately, it was the injury to Romero, whose knee buckled in the collision with his goalkeeper, which may have the most profound impact on Tottenham’s future.

Anyone who saw Romero’s reaction would have inferred that he was facing a spell on the sidelines. The only question was how bad the injury would be, whether it would rule him out of Spurs’ scramble for survival entirely, or whether it would also jeopardise his dreams of appearing in a second World Cup with Argentina this summer.

It has been widely reported, first in Argentina, that Romero has sustained a knee injury and the expectation is that he will play no further part in the six remaining weeks of the season. Tottenham have declined to comment, but Roberto De Zerbi is expected to address it at his media conference on Friday.

That news will be of little solace to Tottenham fans, given the severity of Spurs’ league situation. Everyone knows what a difficult situation they are in right now. Six league games left following Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at Sunderland. Two points behind in-form West Ham United. Three behind Nottingham Forest. And desperately in need of a league win — something they have not achieved since December — in the hope that it might unlock something in the minds of the players.

What makes this injury especially painful is that no player was going to be as important to Spurs’ attempts to stay up as Romero. It is not just that he is arguably the Spurs’ best player. Or even that he is the captain. It is that Romero has a unique mentality, unbending, desperate to win. He has won the lot at international level — one World Cup and two Copa Americas — and was integral to Spurs’ Europa League triumph last season.

Romero has not been at his best this season. There have been plenty of mistakes and needless suspensions. But even in a bad season, he has produced moments — late equalisers at Newcastle and Burnley — that remind you he has the capacity, unlike any other Spurs player, to change the course of a game through force of will.

That is what De Zerbi wanted to tap into. It always felt as if the arrival of De Zerbi could be the best thing for Romero, bringing in a coach who not only played dominant front-foot football, of the sort all players want to play, but who had the passion and conviction that appeals to players too.

In one of his first media appearances at Spurs, De Zerbi told NBC Sports that Romero was “crucial for Tottenham”, was “maybe the most important player in our squad” and that “to achieve our goal, we need the best of Romero”.

Romero arrived for training at the start of last week following international commitments, but was seemingly quickly convinced by his new manager too. In an interview he gave before the Sunderland game, he talked up De Zerbi, calling him a “coach with a lot of passion”, saying he had brought the smiles back to training and pledging that Spurs were “going to be good with him”.

It felt as if that bond would be integral to Spurs’ chances of staying up. If Romero could be De Zerbi’s leader on the pitch and drive the team forward, then maybe between them they could pull off the impossible job.

And there were signs at Sunderland that it might work. One of the first moves of the game started with Romero driving a pass through to Dominic Solanke, who turned, ran, got onto Richarlison’s through ball and produced a cross which Lucas Bergvall nearly converted. Later on in the first half, Romero won a 50-50 and sprinted forward, launching an attack which led to another Solanke effort.

But that knee injury now means we may not see Romero playing for De Zerbi again this season. And whatever happens to Spurs, players like Romero will attract interest in the summer. They will not be playing in Europe next season, and if they go down, not in the season after either. It could well be another summer of speculation over Romero, even though he signed a new long-term deal at the start of this season.

The hope must be that Kevin Danso can come in and provide another secure presence at the back. He has never let Spurs down. But he does not have Romero’s intangibles: his audacity, his uniqueness, his main-character energy.

Spurs’ attempt to stay in the Premier League has just become even harder.

Tottenham Hotspur have been edging slowly but steadily towards the Premier League’s bottom three since the turn of the year, but this weekend they finally got sucked in.

West Ham’s win over Wolves on Friday night saw the east Londoners burst out of the drop zone, pushing Spurs beneath them. Spurs were unable to immediately escape, meekly losing 1-0 at Sunderland on Sunday afternoon in Roberto De Zerbi’s first game in charge.

This is the first time Spurs have been in the relegation zone beyond the early weeks of a season since January 2009.

A question that has been a hypothetical for the last few months now feels far more real — could a club that won a major European trophy, played in the Champions League this season, and is the ninth-wealthiest football club in the world, according to Deloitte, really be relegated to the Championship?

We’ll find out over the next few weeks — in the meantime, this is what some of The Athletic’s writers think…

“Will go down” still feels like a stretch. Burnley and Wolves are as good as gone, so we’re talking about four teams (Tottenham, Leeds, Forest and West Ham) separated by three points, fighting to avoid 18th place. That leaves a lot of room for other eventualities. I would have said before this weekend that the weight of probability was still just about in their favour.

But whereas Leeds, Forest and West Ham have all shown they are up for the battle, Tottenham’s form, which has been appalling for 18 months, has got even worse since the turn of the year. There’s absolutely no sign of encouragement in the way they are playing. It’s widely agreed that they have lacked fight, but they also lack resilience, composure, quality, dynamism and pretty much every quality you would want in a team.

I give them a better chance under Roberto De Zerbi than under Igor Tudor, but if you’re demanding I say yes or no, then yes I think they’ll go down. And the way things are going, they’ll be going down without a fight. It’s shocking, really.

Oliver Kay

I think so. With the change in mood following Roberto De Zerbi’s arrival and the three-week break between matches, it was easy to forget that Spurs are just… a really limited team. This latest defeat was a reminder that the players are totally bereft of confidence and quality, and there are too many individuals who do not appear to care enough about the club’s plight.

De Zerbi was the latest manager to largely ignore Xavi Simons on Sunday, which left his side short of creativity, but at this point, you wonder if tinkering with the XI is akin to rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. There is a grim momentum about Spurs’ slide down the table and they bear all the hallmarks of a shock relegation.

As De Zerbi said at the Stadium of Light, Spurs may only need one result to change the mood and remind the players how to win. But with just six games remaining and points to make up on the teams around them, it is increasingly hard to see where that win is coming from and how Spurs get out of this mess.

Dan Kilpatrick

For months, Tottenham were sleepwalking towards relegation. Now they are freefalling into it.

Spurs have been — by a considerable distance — the worst Premier League from either results or performances since the start of the calendar year.

The rot had engulfed itself long before that, of course. Spurs were booed off at home to Chelsea on November 1, when they were fourth. Fans knew early positive results were not only unsustainable but that, to steal Ruben Amorim’s words from Manchester United a year previously, “a storm was coming”.

Spurs were lacking in creativity and flair, but have increasingly lacked physicality, tactical discipline, teamwork or any self-belief. The club’s pondering over Frank’s future and indecisiveness on his successor has led to increasingly panicked and poorly thought-out decisions.

The dreadful 3-1 capitulation at home to Crystal Palace on March 5 was surely the moment Spurs fans thought their nightmare was unfolding in front of their eyes. Players sporadically raised themselves for periods of games against Manchester City, Liverpool or Atletico Madrid, but when the pressure and focus was on them: they have routinely crumbled.

Players look emotionally exhausted and detached from their current status. Any win, never mind several of them, looks a distant prospect.

Colin Millar

I feel like someone should make the case for Spurs staying up, so here goes. In the first half at Sunderland, we saw an unusually positive performance. They created chances in open play, not something they have done too often recently. They even made it to half-time without conceding for the first time in months.

Of course, they fell apart in the second half, collapsing at the first setback again. That is par for the course. But it still feels like just one bit of luck, one win could transform the players’ mentality. As De Zerbi has repeatedly stated, the number one problem at Spurs is in their heads. They just need an injection of belief somehow. With Brighton at home and then Wolves away, they have two games where things might just bounce their way for once. And if they do, they have sufficiently good players to get out of this.

It is starting to feel as if West Ham have real momentum, so they may be beyond catching. But neither Nottingham Forest nor Leeds United are playing brilliantly. And so if Spurs can just somehow scramble one win soon, then perhaps they could generate the momentum to leapfrog one of those two and make it to dry land.

Jack Pitt-Brooke

Yes, barring a drastic change in attitude, they will.

Sunderland’s Stadium of Light has housed plenty of teams bearing all the traits of the doomed and on Sunday it added another to the list. That Spurs were better in the first half is a sign of how bad they have been and how low expectations have dropped. Sunderland were disjointed and sloppy and still their visitors couldn’t put themselves in front. After the break, a team that the situation dictates should be battling did anything but.

It is the latter that will do for them. There is an indignity to this team that belies its apparent talent; they give the impression they simply don’t care enough. To watch Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero, Spurs’ captain, no less, expend more energy on bemoaning decisions than anything else is indicative of the problem. Richarlison careening to the floor at every opportunity, likewise.

Teams without talent go down every year. Two more, in Burnley and Wolves, will this season. While Spurs have overpaid for a lot of average footballers they are also exactly that: average, which is better than relegation. Yet the adage of talent only getting you so far has never looked truer than when watching this Spurs team. They lack heart and it shames them. De Zerbi has a huge job on his hands and it will be a greater shock if he succeeds rather than fails.

Chris Weatherspoon

They deserve to be, but I think they survive by a point or two.

The micro issues are obvious. Some of these players are not good enough. Among those who are, there are a couple playing well within themselves, with minds on the World Cup and their moves away.

But this team is a reflection of what the club has become. Football teams make mistakes — that’s just part of the game — but Spurs have made so many now and have been so slow to correct those that are reversible, that pointing the finger at individual players seems beside the point. There’s a pervasive hopelessness to everything now and even a nationwide appetite to see them relegated; there are too many enemies and there is too much negative momentum.

A healthy team would rally against that — even use it to stoke their revival. With games against Wolves, Brighton, Everton and Leeds left, there is more than enough time to change the course of the season. But we’ve been saying that for months now.

I’m a fan. I have to be positive. Perhaps the only reason I believe that they will survive is because I want them to.

Seb Stafford-Bloor

Until about a month ago, I was of the mind that Spurs fans were being overly dramatic about their team’s chances of relegation. Then I watched their 3-1 defeat to Crystal Palace, and realised that nobody was exaggerating.

As Oli says, it is hard to make a definitive statement when there are still four teams within three points of 18th place. But the clue is in the name: this is a relegation battle, and Tottenham are missing the fight. They look progressively more and more shell-shocked by what is happening to them, but it is putting them into a stupor rather than shaking them awake.

I don’t believe that Spurs are completely without quality — there are some players who are not good enough for what the club want to achieve, but there are plenty who should absolutely be good enough to avoid relegation. Their issue, as everyone knows by this point, is that they completely lack confidence.

Tudor’s short tenure was a disaster: his job description might as well have read ‘new manager bounce’ rather than ‘interim manager’, and it became rapidly clear that no bounce was forthcoming. De Zerbi has better credentials for the post than Tudor, but very little time to snap these players out of their funk. Had he started his tenure with a win, it could have been a springboard, but instead they have gathered so much downward momentum that, if they stay up, I think it will be down to other teams’ favours rather than any resurgence by Spurs.

Cerys Jones

“Tottenham away, ole ole….”.

As Stevenage’s hardy band of 279 travelling fans celebrated what may well prove to be a season-defining victory in their pursuit of the League One play-offs at Bradford City on Saturday, no doubt what possible future fixture was uppermost in their minds.

Tottenham Hotspur. In north London. As Championship peers. A mindboggling prospect that just a few weeks ago I’d have dismissed as fantasy.

Sure, Tottenham were on a bad run. And sure, every Tottenham-sporting colleague seemed to be working themselves up into a frenzy about relegation.

But, this was Tottenham. I’d seen Thomas Frank’s side cruise to a deserved 2-1 victory at Leeds United in October, so felt sure they had the players to get out of trouble, even as results continued to worsen in the New Year.

How could a team with proven Premier League goalscorers such as Richarlison and Dominic Solanke not get the couple of wins they needed to stop the rot? I said the same to anyone who asked about West Ham and Jarrod Bowen.

And then I watched Tottenham’s 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest just before the last international break. Wow.

It wasn’t just the loss of three points to a major rival in the fight to avoid the drop. It was the total lack of heart and desire once behind that had ‘relegation’ written all over it. Sunderland on Sunday was similar.

Stevenage may not go on to win promotion from League One. Even if a club who dropped ‘Borough’ from their name in 2010 because it sounded “too non-League” hold on to sixth place, they’d still then have to get the better of some very good teams in the play-offs.

But, if Alex Revell’s side do upset the odds to go up, the Premier League’s first £1billion stadium will next season be hosting a league fixture that no one, not even the most ardent Arsenal fan enjoying their wildest dream, could have forecast.

Richard Sutcliffe

I still can’t quite believe it, but yes, I think they will.

The caveats here are that all of the other three candidates to go down could quite easily collapse at any moment, and only West Ham look close to actively good. It could all change with one win for Spurs, and it maybe isn’t reasonable to expect De Zerbi to have that much of an impact after just one game.

But it now looks like you’re going to need 39, maybe 40 points to stay up this season. West Ham have 32 and the way they’re playing, they might reach that with a couple of games to spare. Forest aren’t playing brilliant football but have 33, play Burnley next weekend, and in the last few games have figured out a way to scrap points from some decent opponents. Leeds have 33 as well, and while they haven’t scored a goal in their last four games (before they play Manchester United tonight), four of their last six fixtures are against other relegation candidates.

In short, of the four, Tottenham currently look the least likely to reach the required figure. Which is why I think they will be relegated.

Nick Miller

I have seen this movie a few times before with another original member of the ‘big five’ in Everton, only for them to somehow find a way to get out of trouble. I think history will repeat itself.

Sure, Tottenham are in the worst run of form of all the remaining relegation candidates fighting to avoid joining Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley in the Championship.

But I believe hiring Roberto De Zerbi, albeit a bit on the late side, is going to pay off. It is not as if Tottenham’s run-in is against lots of teams putting in amazing performances on a regular basis themselves. Even a trip to Chelsea is not that intimidating, given the woeful displays they have been putting in of late, especially at Stamford Bridge.

I just think Spurs will get the few breaks you need to turn the negative momentum around and scrape to safety.

Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season, The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s football.

This was the weekend when Manchester City blew Chelsea away, Liverpool picked up a crucial win as those around them dropped points, West Ham put four past Wolves, and Crystal Palace came from behind to beat Newcastle.

Here we will ask if Arsenal’s collective neuroses mean it’s to their advantage that their game of the season will be away from home, whether Tottenham really are heading for relegation, and whether 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha showed he’s the real thing for Liverpool…

Is it better for Arsenal that their biggest game isn’t at home?

Title race extremely on, then.

If you don’t like hype about upcoming fixtures, we would recommend burrowing to the Earth’s core for the next week, because that’s the only way you’ll avoid the build-up to Arsenal’s colossal, massive, quite simply large trip to Manchester City next Sunday.

And with good reason. This isn’t quite a title decider in the sense that the winner will be champions, but it’s not far off. Everyone had been looking forward to this one before the events of this weekend, but it’s even bigger now.

It was perhaps ominous for Arsenal how, at half-time of their 3-0 win over Chelsea on Sunday, City seemingly just decided they were going to be brilliant, after a first half in which they had been relatively average. Rayan Cherki had one of those days where his remarkable best displayed itself in big neon lights, laying on two of the goals and at times toying with a dreadful Chelsea side.

It was familiar: this is the time of year that the great City sides of the past have become unstoppable machines, and there was a look of that on Sunday.

Arsenal were insipid in losing to Bournemouth on Saturday lunchtime, a shadow of their imposing best selves that we have seen for much of the season. The football isn’t, to say the least, always scintillating, but they’re usually much more solid and resolute than this. Mikel Arteta’s assessment was that they “did a lot of strange things”, but it was another game in which they became frustrated very quickly, which perhaps inhibited their performance. Confidence is through the floor; the collective neuroses, built up over 22 title-less years, were all over the faces of the players.

They weren’t the only ones: it was notable how soon the crowd at the Emirates appeared to lose patience with their team, and at one point in the first half, Arteta seemed to gesture to some fans to calm down. There was a smattering of boos at full time, an extraordinary state of affairs for a team who were at that stage nine points clear at the top of the Premier League.

This is not to say that the fans are the biggest problem, but there seems to be a nervous energy around the Emirates that isn’t helping anyone. Which is why you wonder whether it’s actually better for them that next Sunday’s game is away, at the Etihad.

Sure, they will still have to improve on performances that have stagnated for a few weeks now, and Arteta will have to motivate, relax, whatever he can to get his team into the right frame of mind. He might also remind his team that they don’t have to win — City do, but a draw would be OK for Arsenal, leaving them six points clear with City having a game in hand.

But not having to deal with playing at home could help, too. Perhaps it won’t make much of a difference, but Arsenal need something to change at the moment, and removing one layer of pressure might help them.

Is that it for Tottenham Hotspur?

The basic facts tell you that there is still everything to play for in the Premier League relegation race.

Three points separate four teams, with Tottenham currently occupying 18th place and Leeds yet to play this weekend. West Ham and Nottingham Forest are between those two, so with six more rounds to go, in theory, it’s shaping up to be a thoroughly entertaining scrap for survival.

But then you watch the games, and you start to feel much less optimistic about Tottenham’s chances of staying up.

All of the noises coming out of the club this week suggested that everyone is much happier now that Roberto De Zerbi is in charge, which may well be true, but that apparent mood lift wasn’t apparent in a 1-0 defeat to Sunderland that looked an awful lot like their previous defeats.

Nordi Mukiele’s deflected goal was extremely lucky, but Tottenham’s performance was littered with wasted chances, poor decisions and a troubling lack of resilience to setbacks.

The difference between Tottenham and their rivals is that the other relegation candidates all have something to recommend them. Leeds have apparently forgotten how to score goals, but they have points on the board and are still to play Wolves and Burnley at home.

Forest aren’t exactly playing dazzling football, but they’re chiselling out points, and Chris Wood’s return to fitness couldn’t have been timed better. West Ham just look like a good team again, not merely one in fine form: in a league table from when they beat Spurs on January 17, they would be fifth.

What can you say in favour of Tottenham?

That they have theoretically good players? Those players have put them in this position. That De Zerbi will make a difference? Well, yes, perhaps, but that’s hope currently based on no evidence. That they’re Tottenham and the idea of them being relegated feels absurd? Get used to it, because it could well be happening.

Is Rio Ngumoha the real thing?

It’s not necessarily a sign that everything else is going brilliantly when a 17-year-old is a team’s most threatening player, but in a season that has not been blessed with dazzling highs for Liverpool, they will take whatever positives are available.

Rio Ngumoha is extremely highly rated and has shown examples of why in flashes this season: a late winner against Newcastle here, a lively cameo off the bench there. But Saturday’s 2-0 win over Fulham was just his second start in the Premier League, and it also felt like his first proper ‘performance’.

His goal was brilliantly taken, but maybe more exciting was how he constructed the chance for himself, cutting in with those frantic feet from the left, jinking once to set the defence on their heels, then jinking again to create a little space and the correct angle for the shot. It was like he was testing the Fulham back line for weaknesses, looking for holes, before finding one and busting it wide open.

It wasn’t an isolated incident either: he nearly did something very similar at least twice more in the game, and the way he systematically broke Fulham down suggested that there’s more than just skill and speed there, that there’s a keen football brain, too, which isn’t a given for someone of his age. Put all that together and you’ve got something very exciting.

It also almost felt like Ngumoha’s goal served as a reminder for Mohamed Salah, who scored a mirror image version of his strike shortly afterwards. It was as if the great No 11 watched the kid on the other wing and said, “Oh, yeah, I used to do that all the time.”

The debate is now whether he should start against Paris Saint-Germain in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday. “He would take it in his stride,” Virgil van Dijk told the media after he was asked how the youngster would deal with such a thing.

On this evidence, you can’t disagree.

Coming up

If Tottenham Hotspur are relegated next month, to the list of internal reasons the club will provide for their demise should be added an unexpected external factor: Sunderland.

One year ago the Wearsiders were beaten at home by Swansea City in the Championship on the way to finishing fourth and entering the play-offs against Coventry City, then Sheffield United. Sunderland won those dramatically, but by the skin of their teeth. No one in the Premier League watching was thinking Sunderland would be a serious presence in the division this season.

The general feeling was Sunderland would follow the recent pattern of clubs promoted via the play-offs going straight back down. Remember that angst about the status of newly-promoted clubs and the debate surrounding a lack of sporting competitiveness? The existing Premier League clubs felt locked in, with Spurs’ ability to coast through the end of the their domestic season as they focused on the Europa League an example of imbalance. Spurs had already won a European trophy as Sunderland prepared for the play-off final.

Southampton’s dismal experience last season was fresh in the mind. Thus, even when Sunderland’s players and staff celebrated downstairs at Wembley in May in their ‘We Are Back’ T-shirts, they were being asked sceptically about being ‘Premier League-ready’.

If that sounded harsh, more pessimism was encountered when majority shareholder Kyril Louis-Dreyfus turned up for the club’s first Premier League meeting the following month. As he told The Athletic in December: “At the start of the season everyone thought we were going to finish last. I went to the Premier League meeting in June and that was the consensus.”

But here they are, two points off Chelsea in sixth, having just beaten two teams, in Newcastle United and Tottenham, who were playing knockout Champions League football a few weeks ago.

Sunderland have won 12 and drawn 10 of 32 league games. Their three-game losing streak in February is the only time they have suffered consecutive defeats. Only Fulham have done the double over them (though Manchester United still can do that when they visit the Stadium of Light). There have been stirring comebacks against Bournemouth and Arsenal. Unlike Spurs, for example, Sunderland are more than the sum of their parts. Unlike Spurs yesterday, teamwork, attitude and commitment have been conspicuous.

These consecutive victories over Newcastle and Tottenham, however, may still not alter the fact Regis Le Bris’ rising team are flying under the radar. At Sunderland’s training ground last Friday, Le Bris was asked whether a comparative lack of national appreciation for this season bothered him at all. Sunderland’s win at Newcastle after all had been warped into a referendum on Eddie Howe and his situation at St James’ Park; now Sunderland were about to face Tottenham and all the noise was about their new coach Roberto De Zerbi and the trials of Spurs.

Le Bris, not a man for verbal jousting, replied: “I think we have our own journey, so the noise can be the noise, no problem.”

All season Le Bris’ mantra had been “40 points”. Sunderland reached the target with a 1-0 win at Leeds United at the beginning of March. Leeds, too, can change perceptions of promoted clubs. They did finish 24 points above Sunderland in last season’s Championship, though, and were in the Premier League three seasons ago.

After Elland Road, Le Bris called a meeting with his squad to discuss what comes next.

“They expected something new,” he said, “because this is their future and they always need something to achieve. It was important to design the right objective, but it’s not always easy to say ‘now we’ve achieved 40 points, let’s go for 60.’ You never know, you lose your first three games and that target is over.

“It’s more about the vision and this is connected with daily standards. You can achieve a big target if you’re working hard every day. We have to enjoy what we are doing, it’s not always easy when you lose, it’s different. But when you win, you can grow.”

Having a growth mindset was a Tony Mowbray phrase while at the club; Le Bris has talked more often about Sunderland’s “underdog mindset”.

Both will continue in parallel over the next six games, which will determine whether Sunderland play European football for the first time since 1973.

Le Bris dealt with that question yesterday with the dexterity of Enzo Le Fee — “for me it’s not on my mind at the minute because we are 10th.

“The main objective was to stay in the league… the ambition is to be a top-10 club.”

Le Fee’s exquisite touch set up Brian Brobbey for his thumping equaliser at Spurs in January. Losing four points to Wearside will not have been considered last August in London N17.

A European place would be remarkable, though, given there were 14 new signings on top of that late May play-off. It is why, even when the likes of Granit Xhaka and Habib Diarra were signed, there was a belief Sunderland would stumble, then struggle.

The euphoric opening day win at home against ‘Graham Potter’s West Ham’ set a tone, but when players left for AFCON in December it was thought this was the moment of subsidence. Then, without the likes of Noah Sadiki, Sunderland beat Newcastle, drew at Brighton & Hove Albion and at home against Manchester City.

Nordi Mukiele’s deflected winner against Spurs means Le Bris’ side have taken 29 points at home. Last season Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Southampton accumulated 28 points between them in home games.

It is not all perfect at the club, there has been a disconcerting level of churn off the field as well as on it, but had Sunderland been the weakest link as anticipated, Tottenham would be fourth-bottom and most definitely not as concerned about relegation as their new coach De Zerbi was here.

At the Stadium of Light Sunderland have beaten West Ham, Wolves, Burnley and Spurs, with Forest next to come here. They have shaken complacency, bucked a worrisome trend and done the Premier League a sporting favour. Sunderland have made a bit of noise.

The problem with appointing your third manager of the season with seven Premier League games left, when you have not won for more than three months, and all your creative players are injured, is that you desperately need your luck to be in.

Over the course of a 38-game season, you can hope that some of the impact of fortune, of randomness, of contingent little football events, bounces, decisions, injuries, and human error, might be levelled out by the sample size. But if you judge over just seven games, and those games are played under pressure like this, then luck will inevitably play the decisive role.

This is the situation that Roberto De Zerbi has walked into at Spurs. He has just signed a five-year contract. He should be able to build an exciting Tottenham this summer, one that can make his ideas real on the pitch. But to get to that point, to be able to start planning for the future, first he needs to survive this seven-game gauntlet. During which his team are exposed like never before to the random bounces of a relegation scrap.

We always like to think of managers as all-powerful, sitting in front of a dashboard of buttons and levers, able to adjust the variables until they get the desired result. That is never really the case, but it has never been less true than in the case of De Zerbi.

He has arrived at Spurs with almost no buttons to press or levers to pull. No transfer window, a squad struck by another injury crisis, with confidence on the floor and precious little time with the players. He has had to radically simplify his football, just keeping it to a few digestible principles, and hope that his force of personality can unlock something in the players.

And above all, given the stakes, given the limited time, hope that the ball bounces their way. It is not De Zerbi’s fault that he is rolling dice in the dark.

So when Tottenham showed up here at the Stadium of Light on Sunday afternoon, it was never going to be a radically different performance. There was never any prospect of Spurs mastering the complexities of De Zerbi’s ideal game, with all of its bright originality, its intricate patterns. Instead, they just came here trying to work hard and be direct.

There is no point trying to sugarcoat it. This was, in large parts, an ugly, scrappy game. Some football was played in the first half, but very little in the second. So much of it hinged on the physical battle between Brian Brobbey and the Tottenham centre-backs. Sunderland were the better team over the course of the game, especially in the second half when they took control and Spurs ran out of steam, ran out of belief. You would struggle to argue that Tottenham were unlucky to lose this game.

But despite all of that, there were moments when Spurs were not exactly lucky either. Or where, in a marginal situation, things did not go their way. Like when Richarlison played in Dominic Solanke, who whipped in a cross which Lucas Bergvall could not quite reach at the near post. Or when Conor Gallagher played in Randal Kolo Muani, who laid it off to Richarlison, who could not connect in a good position. Or when Kolo Muani was awarded an admittedly questionable penalty after colliding with Omar Alderete and Luke O’Nien, only for VAR to overturn it. Or, best of all, when Destiny Udogie crossed from the left, just before the break, the ball fell to Solanke but Robin Roefs saved.

None of these were great chances or necessarily great football, but they were the kind of promising little moments which on a good day fall for you. And there was time for one more when Pedro Porro released Richarlison, who again failed to finish with conviction.

And the problem when things like this keep bouncing against you is that there is always a chance they will bounce against you at the opposite end, too. Tottenham’s defending to let Nordi Mukiele run at them was poor, but when his shot hit Micky van de Ven, it deflected in a way that left Antonin Kinsky no chance.

The biggest single problem Spurs have right now, even bigger than the injury crisis, is the total collapse of the players’ confidence. This is a team who have not won a league game since December, two managers and almost four months ago.

And anyone who has watched them this season knows that as soon as anything goes against them in a game, the players do not know how to cope. This was the story against Nottingham Forest, Atletico Madrid, Crystal Palace, Fulham and far too many other recent defeats to mention. And this is precisely the type of ingrained issue which is very difficult for De Zerbi to just click his fingers and change.

So it was little surprise that Spurs offered very little after Mukiele’s goal. But there was still another slice of bad luck to come, when Cristian Romero was nudged into Kinsky by Brobbey, colliding with his ‘keeper in such a way that he left the field in tears with a suspected knee injury.

At the end, when Van de Ven was sitting exhausted on the floor, Udogie down on his haunches, it was a far too familiar sight: Spurs looking beaten, almost broken, adrift with nothing to cling to. Tottenham are now two points behind West Ham United, and three behind Nottingham Forest and Leeds United. Every red light is flashing.

Of course, there are still six games left. When Spurs host Brighton on Saturday, they will have a partisan crowd behind them, as well as another week of De Zerbi’s coaching in the bank. But if they are to stay up, they need to win — not just one game but two or maybe three. Right now, they look like they have totally forgotten how to do that, their last league win fading further from memory by the week.

To win those games without playing well, they will need to be lucky. Far luckier than they have been for months. De Zerbi somehow needs to convince them, as remote as it seems, that things might yet turn their way.