inews

Mathys Tel is not keen on a permanent move to Tottenham Hotspur and intends to assess a loan deal, with Manchester United and Aston Villa credible options.

The i Paper has been told that this stance is no slight on Tottenham as a club, more that Tel wants first-team opportunities he believes he may not get there.

The Bayern Munich forward had been the subject of a £60m bid, with Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy travelling to Germany on Friday to move the transfer along.

However, the north London club have been unable to sway his decision.

As reported on Thursday, Tel is especially interested in seeing whether United make their move.

Ruben Amorim has been pursuing Tel along with Lecce left-back Patrick Dorgu as he looks to make his first signings since taking from Erik ten Hag as manager at Old Trafford.

So many Premier League clubs have expressed an interest in Tel that the 19-year-old and his representatives are biding their time and assessing his preferences before the transfer window closes on Monday.

Villa are hopeful they can make a late play for his services as they also toy with a loan move for Marcus Rashford.

The England international’s strained relationship with Amorim hit a new low when the United boss suggested he would rather pick 63-year-old goalkeeper coach Jorge Vital than Rashford.

As for Tottenham, they are yet to sign any outfield players this January after bringing in goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky in the first week of the window.

Tel’s signing would have bolstered a depleted attack that is without the injured Dominic Solanke, Timo Werner, Wilson Odobert and Brennan Johnson, but Ange Postecoglou’s side will be forced to look elsewhere or make do with the young forwards who excelled against Elfsborg in midweek.

Bayern are willing to sanction Tel’s exit, with the Frenchman having been used sparingly in the Bundesliga, making just two league starts and six substitute appearances, registering one assist.

In the Champions League he has made three appearances and two more in the DFB-Pokal.

It is now simply a question of which move he decides to make as he prepares a switch to the Premier League.

Tottenham Hotspur 3-0 Elfsborg (Scarlett 70’, Ajayi 84’, Moore 90+4)

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM – After a week of Tottenham toxicity, remarkably Ange Postecoglou has not lost any of his sense of humour.

Having watched Radu Dragusin twist his knee just 20 minutes after coming on as a substitute for Micky van de Ven, Postecoglou kicked a stray ball heading for his dugout, before feeling his hamstring with a chuckle towards the bench.

The injury list has indeed felt laughable at times, and yet here was a glimmer of hope as another setback gave way to a flurry of goals from three of Spurs’ brightest academy prospects.

Off went Dragusin and on came Dane Scarlett, only recalled from his loan at Oxford United when Dominic Solanke was ruled out for up to six weeks.

A breakthrough for the striker has sometimes felt off limits; now 20, Scarlett has made senior appearances in four of the last five seasons under three different managers, following closely behind Troy Parrott who is now starring in the Netherlands. This time, might it be different?

It took one Scarlett header, a brilliant finish from debutant Damola Ajayi, and a mazy run from Mikey Moore to offer a blueprint for how the Europa League ought to be used. They will hope Postecoglou’s job is not in too much jeopardy so that he can afford to keep giving them opportunities.

There is now every reason to as all three shared in their own slices of history. Jimmy Greaves’ record as the youngest Englishman to score in a major European competition (17 years, 245 days at Chelsea) had stood since 1957 until Moore (17 years, 172 days) struck in injury time.

Ajayi, who turned 19 just after Christmas, brushed off a Harry Kane milestone, becoming the youngest substitute to score for Spurs in Europe in over 13 years.

In fact it is the first time any English club have had three goalscorers under 21 in Europe since 2007, when Cesc Fabregas, Theo Walcott and Nicklas Bendtner were on the scoresheet for Arsenal in a 7-0 win over Slavia Prague.

On these nights under the lights in the all-white kit, with Postecoglou purring about a victory “made in Tottenham”, there endures a special heritage from the old White Hart Lane. And still, they come at a heavy price.

Dragusin’s withdrawal felt a cruel irony in a match where some bookmakers were offering odds at how long Van de Ven would last on his latest return from injury.

The Dutchman got his 45 minutes, as expected, but it was a gamble to throw him in, just as it remains a risk to continue to pick such strong XIs in Europe.

Aside from Dejan Kulusevski and Yves Bissouma, who started on the bench, this was about the best hand Postecoglou could have played. While Van de Ven is back unscathed, the feel-good factor will take a little while to follow, so deep have been the cuts of the last seven weeks in his absence.

With Spurs through to the knockouts, there is now a serious call to be made. This is a squad close to breaking point, regardless of whether any late business – such as a £60m deal for Bayern Munich target Mathys Tel – can be done.

The youngsters have done all they can do. If they are not ready to take Spurs all the way in this competition, is a half-exhausted depleted crop of their walking-wounded senior players?

How they could have done with a winter break like Elfsborg, who have not played a league match since Christmas. A February play-off would have been the worst possible outcome, so it is a great mercy that Spurs clinched a top-eight finish.

Essentially, Postecoglou has been juggling a double-edged sword. This cup has added to the workload of his beleaguered players. At the same time, there has not been all that much choice.

He can take heart from the trio who excelled from the bench, and from his other 18-year-olds Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall. The latter eventually settled after a hyperactive first half in which he was a little too desperate to impress the Yellow Wall of away supporters from back home.

Rio Kyerematen, Will Lankshear, Malachi Hardy, Dante Cassanova and Callum Olusesi – a close friend of Moore’s – were also named on the bench.

That will only strengthen Postecoglou’s argument that the crisis engulfing Spurs has only ever been about injuries. Van de Ven, for example, transformed the defence on his comeback, thwarting every counter and muscling Jalal Abdullai off the ball, to rapturous applause from around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The “We want Levy out” chants have not gone away, though – it even sounded for a moment as if the Elfsborg supporters were joining in, their goalkeeper Isak Petterson’s chant bobbing along to the same tune.

The heat is off Postecoglou for a few days but eyes will remain on the chairman as the transfer window winds down. This is still not a squad that can afford to find out exactly how far it can be stretched. Should Postecoglou opt to rest his key men going forward, at least Scarlett, Ajayi and Moore have given him three reasons to feel optimistic.

Bayern Munich forward Mathys Tel is waiting to see if Manchester United’s interest is concrete before making a decision on his future.

Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur have all made enquiries about the 19-year-old, with Spurs furthest along in their talks. But The i Paper has been told Tel would prefer a move to Old Trafford.

Bayern sporting director Max Eberl confirmed he has already fielded calls from a host of clubs, with Tel emerging as the most wanted man in Europe in the final week of the January transfer window.

It is not clear whether Bayern will sanction a loan move, but should they do so, United are understood to be considering entering the market at the 11th hour.

The club’s focus remains on outgoings, with Casemiro, Alejandro Garnacho and Marcus Rashford all potentially leaving in the coming days, but Ruben Amorim could be in the market for another striker, alongside the signing of left-back Patrick Dorgu from Lecce.

Dorgu’s capture, for around £30m, is set to go through in the next few days, with the 20-year-old flying to Manchester to complete a medical later on Thursday or Friday morning.

With United already running close to falling foul of the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR), any move for Tel would have to be carefully negotiated.

The opportunity for more first-team action at Old Trafford, over Arsenal and Chelsea especially, is said to be the main reason behind Tel’s patience. Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee – United’s only central strike options – have scored five league goals between them all season. Amorim is said to be far from impressed with his squad’s lack of firepower.

United do not have the funds to move for their main transfer target now, Sporting Lisbon’s Viktor Gyokeres, but they are set to return to that option in the summer, when the Swede will be available at a reduced price.

A departure of a big earner would certainly give any late swoop for Tel the green light. Rashford revealed his wishes to seek a new challenge last month, with a host of clubs across Europe all expressing an interest.

Covering even a portion of the 27-year-old’s wages of over £300,000-a-week have put off almost all interested parties, with it more likely than ever, despite the forward remaining very much in exile and out of Amorim’s plans, that Rashford stays put.

Sources have told The i Paper, however, that Rashford has not given up on working his way back into Amorim’s plans.

There is a feeling the situation can be rectified, even if Amorim and Rashford are not on the best terms, given he has not been completely jettisoned from first-team training like Jadon Sancho was under Erik ten Hag.

Garnacho has been the subject of major interest from Chelsea and Napoli during this window.

The Serie A league leaders, who have money to spend after winger Khvicha Kvaratskhelia joined Paris Saint-Germain, have already seen a bid of around £40m rejected, with United aiming for offers over £50m before they are even entertained.

In the last fortnight, two happenings have coincided at Tottenham Hotspur: they have been confirmed as the ninth richest club in the world and simultaneously been dragged towards the relegation zone by a sixth defeat from their last seven Premier League games.

Spurs have been ravaged by an injury crisis that currently leaves them without 12 first-team players, including both first-choice centre-backs, two strikers, a left-back, three wingers, two other midfielders and the goalkeeper.

Despite that, since deputy stopper Antonin Kinsky arrived on 5 January, they have not signed a single player – leaving them with no outfield additions at all, even as they sit 15th in the table and with Ange Postecoglou unable to name a full bench for the 2-1 home loss to Leicester City.

Postecoglou recently warned the club they would be “playing with fire” without reinforcements. He had insisted Dominic Solanke needed “help” before the £60m summer signing was ruled out for up to six weeks with a knee injury.

January is a notoriously quiet window but across the top flight, outgoings are up from £90m last year to around £250m in 2025 – though approximately half of that is down to Manchester City alone.

So why aren’t Spurs spending?

European revenue

Postecoglou’s side are currently 16 points off the European places, though they can still qualify for the Champions Leage by winning the Europa League, or the Conference League via the Carabao Cup. Spurs have played in one continental competition or another in 17 of the last 19 seasons – but they are at serious risk of missing out in 2025-26.

“Being in Europe you’ve got five matches bringing in at Champions League level £4-5m a match,” football finance expert Kieran Maguire tells The i Paper.

“You’re losing £20m there, you’re losing £30m from non-participation, another £10m from sponsors where you’ve not got bonuses, you’re already £60-70m down.”

If Spurs qualify for the second or third-tier European competitions, they are at risk of fewer Category A matches and are therefore limited in what they can charge for tickets.

The wage bill

However, Spurs are in an exceptionally comfortable position otherwise. They have dropped a place to the ninth wealthiest club in the world – per Deloitte’s 2025 Football Money League – but remain in the top 10 due to a lasting “brand” helping to increase “incremental commercial revenue”.

In 2024, their overall revenue was approximately £516m (allowing for conversion rates).

The key figure, though, regards the wage bill – specifically, the amount of their turnover they are spending on salaries. It has gone down from 45 per cent to 42 this year – the lowest of any of the 20 clubs in the world with the highest revenues.

That means there is a huge amount of leeway they could be using but aren’t. “Uefa say 70 per cent is squeaky bum time,” Maguire adds. If they are not willing to change that wage structure – they’re still averaging around £110,000 a week – they are at an immediate disadvantage when it comes to attracting players.

One peculiar factor that affects Spurs rather than other clubs is that their revenue has rocketed thanks to the new stadium – wages have not necessarily increased at the same rate. The percentage of wages to turnover ratio is thus slightly out of kilter.

In 2017, the last year at the old White Hart Lane, the wage bill was £127m. In 2023, it was £251m – by comparison City spent £423m, Liverpool £373m, Chelsea £404m, Manchester United £331m. Spurs did, however, spend more on wages than Arsenal that year.

“They’ve tended to be sixth in the wage budget for many, many years,” Maguire says. “And that’s why players go elsewhere or they don’t come to Spurs in the first place.

“On the basis of the sixth-highest wage bill, you expect them to finish round about that position. Now they’re having a particularly bad season this season, but in other seasons they’ve been knocking around that position, so the correlation in player investment and final league position is evident very much at Spurs.”

An injury crisis

Nevertheless there is a hesitancy within the club to potentially create a longer-term problem if too many players are bought simply to replace those who are injured currently – the majority of those on the sidelines are expected to be back by the end of February at the latest and several of them earlier than that.

Radu Dragusin is a perfect example, one source pointed out. The defender is playing regularly during Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero’s absences but when he was initially brought in as cover, his agent was vocal about his desire to move on if he wasn’t given more game time.

Other than loanees, most players would be signed on a three-year deal, minimum.

Players unavailable

Before personal terms are even discussed, players need to be up for sale. Fewer are available this January because of the new Champions League and Europa League formats – due to the rejigged play-off system, more teams are still in with a chance of qualifying for the knockouts and are even more reluctant than usual to weaken their squads.

Spurs have also made a habit of targeting youngsters from bottom-half Premier League clubs or promotion-chasing Championship sides – last summer that meant Wilson Odobert from relegated Burnley and Archie Gray from Leeds United. That is precisely the category of clubs who cannot afford to let their most desirable assets go mid-season.

‘To dare is too dear’?

It has become a popular myth that Tottenham don’t spend any money but that partly dates back several seasons to the 18-month period between 2017-18 when they did not make a single first-team signing. Since the Champions League final in 2019, the have forked out over £800m on new additions, recruitment which has not always paid off.

What is the PSR situation?

There are clubs of a similar size – Newcastle a case in point – who cannot bring in signings until they sell due to the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).

So do Spurs have those concerns?

“No, they don’t,” insists Magiure. “Whilst they’ve made losses of £239m in the last three years, you exclude your infrastructure spend and that was £216m, so that means they got a loss of £20m. You add what it’s cost for the academy, arguably another 15m, so from a PSR point of view they’ve actually made a profit. They’ve got no PSR concerns whatsoever.”

What about Levy?

Against Leicester, chairman Daniel Levy bore the brunt of fans’ anger. One protest banner read “Our game is about glory, Levy’s game is about greed”, and another, “24 years, 16 managers, 1 trophy – time for change”. Throughout a turbulent second half fans told him to “get out of our club”, interspersed with chants of “we want Levy out”.

The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the state-of-the-art training ground at Hotspur Way are Levy’s great legacy but he is ultimately judged by supporters on results on the pitch. They failed to build on title challenges in 2016 and 2017 and have not won the FA Cup – a trophy lifted eight times by previous Spurs teams – since 1991. The Carling Cup of 2008 remains the only silverware of Enic’s tenure.

The quality of the signings is not entirely down to Levy – sporting director Johan Lange has also attracted scrutiny during a quiet month – but he has been in control of the key appointments to Spurs’ board.

In fact several technical directors have come and gone but none have stuck – Damien Comolli, Franco Baldini and Fabio Paratici, the latter departing after Fifa banned him from football for his alleged links to Juventus’ false accounting.

It’s well-documented that Levy is the Premier League’s highest-paid chairman but it is also worth noting he does not take dividends from the club, unlike many shareholders elsewhere.

The crux of the ire towards him, Maguire notes, is that Spurs “have always had the capacity to spend more but they’ve chosen not to. They wanted to set aside money for the development of the stadium but the new stadium’s there now, so that excuse doesn’t exist”.

In the Tottenham Hotspur shop, you can buy a replica of the historic clock that’s mounted on a lamppost on High Road outside the stadium. It’s a classy-looking thing, bearing the club’s name and topped by a golden cockerel. It costs a hefty £80 but would look great on any mantelpiece.

There’s just one problem.

Read the online description of the thing and the website warns you: “Please note this is not a working clock.”

That’s right. It’s just a lifeless block of resin. It will always be three o’clock in your home.

Surely only Spurs could try to sell their fans a timepiece that doesn’t tell the time, and attempt to charge them £80 for it.

I can’t help thinking this clock/statue/navy-and-white elephant says a lot about the team and the club as a whole at the moment.

Tottenham have one of the best stadiums in the world, a peerless training ground by all accounts, and even some great players on their day. But please note: this is not a working football club.

That might seem a strange thing to write about an institution that was declared “England’s best-run club” only five months ago. Right now, however, it’s a monument to dysfunctionality.

A team that was disappointed to finish fifth last year and aspired to qualify for the Champions League this season are now 15th after 23 games.

They’ve lost at home to the clubs placed 19th and 17th, drawn with the team in 18th, and lost away to the club in 16th.

They haven’t secured a home victory in the league since the first week of November, and won one of the last 11 Premier League games, against the rock-bottom club Southampton.

Perhaps most damningly, they haven’t won a single league game by a one-goal margin all season – showing that when the going gets tough, Spurs don’t get going.

Like a broken clock – or a clock that never worked in the first place – Spurs occasionally get it right, bulldozing teams 3-0, 4-0, 5-0. Far more often, they fail.

Several friends who support other clubs have been messaging me (while reaching for some popcorn, no doubt) to ask why Spurs haven’t sacked Ange Postecoglou yet.

It’s true the injury situation is unprecedented, especially the length of time that a realistically good first XI been ruled out for. But the squad is thin and lacking in quality compared to the best two periods of Tottenham history over the last two decades.

Harry Redknapp’s squad of 2010-11 had six senior specialist centre-backs – Ledley King, Michael Dawson, Jonathan Woodgate, William Gallas, Younes Kaboul and Sebastien Bassong – compared to three now, and four outright strikers compared to two now: Robbie Keane, Jermaine Defoe, Peter Crouch and Roman Pavlyuchenko. Mauricio Pochettino’s squad of, say, 2016-17 was also stronger.

That’s just looking at the numbers – the overall quality of the players has also declined.

Mismanagement stretching back years, when stars were allowed to grow stale instead of being sold for reinvestment, has left today’s squad overstretched. The few uninjured players are either knackered or mere teenagers, or both.

It’s no wonder that Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall – both excellent prospects at 18 years old – simultaneously fell to the ground in utter exhaustion as soon as the final whistle was blown in Hoffenheim last week. For that game, the outfield substitutes also had an average age of just 18.

I’m all for buying great young players. Spurs can only hope to recruit the next Jude Bellingham, for example, by swooping when they’re still teenagers, like Borussia Dortmund did for the man who is now England‘s star midfielder when he was 17 and cost £22m, not by waiting like Real Madrid until they’re an £88m superstar.

But youngsters need to be supported by more mature players, not the other way around. And we’re now 27 days into the transfer window with just a goalkeeper to show for it.

In not having sacked Postecoglou already, it seems chairman Daniel Levy must be accepting all these reasons.

So does all this mean the manager should escape blame? No. Postecoglou’s fig leaf dropped long before the injury crisis.

He initially deserved congratulations for his radical attacking revolution after the stodgy eras of Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, and 11 months ago I found myself thanking him in person at the London Football Awards, where he won manager of the year. That feels a lifetime ago now.

The end of last season was terrible and the start of this one was bad, before many players were missing. When they lost to Ipswich Town at home, Postecoglou had virtually a full first XI starting the game with a relatively strong bench.

It’s unfair to say he never, ever makes any tactical tweaks – but his stubborn pursuit of perfect principles is harming the team, badly.

When Spurs went from 2-0 up to 3-2 down against Brighton & Hove Albion, he refused to even try to change the game through early substitutions, arguing the team had been so bad that it wouldn’t have helped. When he said that he didn’t want three points if his team didn’t deserve them, he was wilfully ignoring the lesson of every successful team in history, that sometimes you have to win while playing badly.

And arguably it has been his relentlessly aggressive and energy-sapping tactics, combined with his relative lack of rotation by not using players like Djed Spence earlier in the season, which worsened – if not caused – the injury catastrophe.

After we slumped 2-1 to Leicester City at the weekend, a fan behind me shouted: “We’re getting f***ing relegated.” Postecoglou seemed to hint this was a possibility when he said a few days ago that the club would be “playing with fire” if they didn’t sign reinforcements.

It looks like the club is content to do just that, failing to support him and his players, while also declining to sack him.

Incredibly there remain some Postecoglou cultists at large, who tell me critics don’t appreciate how bad the injuries really are, or suggest there’s a media conspiracy against the man because he’s a big, old, grumpy Australian. Nonsense.

Perhaps the most pertinent point now is the difficulty in replacing him. It’s too early in the season to give Ryan Mason his third caretaker role, especially when we’re still in three cups and he’s hardly proved himself before. But which currently favoured permanent manager – like Bournemouth‘s Andoni Iraola or Fulham‘s Marco Silva – would possibly want to join us at this stage and in this state?

Some fans ask if other managers could do any better with so many absentees. Increasingly, however, most supporters seem to think it couldn’t get any worse.

Perhaps Postecoglou is effectively now a caretaker boss himself. Surely the board can only be hoping that he will somehow shepherd the club to safety – while they work out how to replace him in the summer.

But if he fails to beat Elfsborg at home in the Europa League on Thursday, potentially landing Spurs two further play-off games for more players to get injured in, that will surely have to be that for Tottenham’s Angeball experiment.

Throughout Enic’s near quarter-of-a-century custodianship of Tottenham Hotspur, there have been a few occasions when the club has looked to have hit rock-bottom.

There was the time they took two points from the first eight games of the 2008-09 season. The end of the Mauricio Pochettino era. The Super League debacle. Harry Kane’s dejection at the end of the miserable Covid campaign. Trailing 5-0 at St James’ Park after just 20 minutes.

The agony of cup final and semi-final defeats, missed opportunities and unsuccessful title tilts. Off the field, frequent ticket price rises and the slashing of concession rates.

Sunday’s defeat at Goodison Park felt like the lowest point Tottenham have sunk to in decades.

Everton had failed to score in nine of their previous 11 league fixtures before facing Spurs and yet managed three in the first-half against their calamitous visitors.

Dismal as the performance was, what happened post-match proved beyond doubt that everything is now broken.

As captain Son Heung-min trudged over towards the away fans, head bowed and palms faced inwards in apology, he was met with an avalanche of boos as people shouted “w****r”.

Without being in the midst of it, it is unclear whether the insults were being directed towards Ange Postecoglou, stood a few metres away, Son, or both, but it still made for a tragic scene.

One of the greatest players in Tottenham’s history, a loyal servant for almost 10 trophyless years, stood disconsolate against a wall of frustration and rage.

The numbers make for brutal reading. It was Spurs’ 12th Premier League defeat of the campaign, matching last season’s tally with 16 games still to play. It leaves them 15th in the table, behind “the worst Manchester United team in history” and a West Ham side that has a goal difference of -16.

Of the five clubs below them in the table, only Ipswich Town haven’t yet changed their manager. Everton are just four points behind with a game in hand. Spurs have only won one of their last 10 league matches and that was against a Southampton team so bad they are threatening Derby County’s all-time record low points tally.

One of the rarely discussed low points of the club’s modern history was when fans hurled their season tickets onto the pitch during a 4-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers at the end of the 2002-03 campaign.

At least the digitised tickets will spare Daniel Levy such ignominy for Sunday’s relegaton six-pointer with Leicester, but he may want to invest in some noise-cancelling headphones in any case. Chants against Levy are becoming increasingly fervent.

The atmosphere for that game will almost certainly be uncomfortably toxic, befitting of the club’s worst crisis in two decades.

The move to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was supposed to herald a glorious new age for a team and a club on the up. Nearly five years since moving in they are a million miles away from where they started.

A series of catastrophic missteps from Levy and the club’s hierarchy have led the club to this point. Failing to build upon a broadly encouraging first year under Postecoglou is a recent addition to the list.

The summer transfer window was a failure. Of the five players signed, only Dominic Solanke was categorically first-team ready. Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall have impressed in trying circumstances and will be the future of the club, but more quality and depth were required given 16 players departed.

January hasn’t been much better. Antonin Kinsky looks like an astute purchase, but the lack of outfield signings three weeks into the window, when the squad is decimated and Postecoglou has frequently called for reinforcements, has prompted fury among the fanbase.

While Spurs have invested in potential in recent windows, the squad for the here and now is still far too thin to compete on multiple fronts. There are currently 11 first-team players out injured, although Rodrigo Bentancur and Yves Bissouma may return this weekend.

There are still fans backing Postecoglou to turn things around, although their number is rapidly dwindling.

There is some sympathy, albeit stretched to breaking point right now, that the Australian has not been sufficiently helped in the transfer market to oversee a post-Kane rebuild and deal with an unprecedented injury crisis.

There is merit to that, but equally Spurs still have more quality than they have shown lately.

Levy has afforded Postecoglou far more time than other managers have had. As Postecoglou himself admitted after last week’s defeat to Arsenal, results have been “unacceptable” regardless of the circumstances in which they have come.

If, or when, Levy decides to pull the trigger, Postecoglou won’t have much of a defence.

Spurs have won 19 and lost 24 of their last 50 Premier League games and rank 12th out of 17 ever-present teams for points – level with Crystal Palace – over that period. Only West Ham, Wolves and Brentford have conceded more goals.

They are averaging 1.09 points per game this season. That equates to 41 points over 38 games. For context, the club’s worst points total in a Premier League campaign is 44, set in 1997-98.

The level of patience being shown to Postecoglou from above was nowhere to be seen when things started to turn sour under Pochettino. The Argentine was fired just six months after leading Spurs to a Champions League final.

Postecoglou’s steadfast belief in his philosophy has also looked increasingly misplaced as the heavy defeats have mounted. Spurs have been routinely punished for being far too open and far too naive.

On the rare occasions he has mixed things up, like playing a back three at Everton, it has backfired even more.

Perhaps the reason that Postecoglou is still in a job is that Levy is well aware of how it reflect on him if he were to be dismissed. Spurs have burned through 11 permanent managers during Enic’s 24 years, at a rate of one every two seasons.

They have appointed every type of manager in that time. Promising up-and-comers (Pochettino and Andre Villas-Boas); historic winners (Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte); tactical idealogues (Postecoglou and Glenn Hoddle); a veteran man manager (Harry Redknapp); head coaches to work under sporting directors (Jacques Santini and Juande Ramos); a glorified interim (Nuno Espirito Santo, now working wonders at Nottingham Forest). They have even hired from within (Martin Jol and Tim Sherwood).

Nothing has worked. Ramos is the only one to have won anything and a League Cup triumph aside, his tenure was a disaster.

Levy is the best-paid director in the Premier League. He has run Spurs superbly as a business, transforming them into one of the world’s most lucrative clubs.

Only Manchester United generate more matchday income than Spurs. They are “market leaders” at establishing commercial revenue streams, according to football finance expert Kieran Maguire.

However, he has also overseen historic failings on the pitch. One trophy this century is a dreadful return for a club of Spurs’ history and resources.

Postecoglou probably wasn’t the right appointment, judging by results over the past 12 months. But the trajectory of his Spurs career is no different to those who came before him. A succession of managers haven’t succeeded. Would Andoni Iraola or Marco Silva fare any better under this regime?

Sacking Postecoglou may help arrest the Spurs slide in the short run. There is plenty of talent to work with even accounting for an overstocked treatment room. But would it really fix anything long-term? Over two decades’ worth of evidence suggests a repeat of the boom and bust cycle is far likelier.

Antonin Kinsky has lived in London for just over a week but he has already been treated to the full Tottenham Hotspur experience.

The 21-year-old joined Spurs from Slavia Prague on 5 January in a deal worth £12.5m and has already played for his new club twice due to the current goalkeeper shortage.

Last Wednesday, Kinsky starred in a rousing Carabao Cup semi-final win over Liverpool which showcased the very best of an exciting young team. He kept a clean sheet and made six saves to keep the Premier League leaders at bay. It was sink or swim for the Czech rookie; his success was akin to diving in off the 10m board and going straight into the butterfly.

Then on Sunday, he was one of a few to emerge with any credit from a nail-biting win over non-league Tamworth in the FA Cup that showed Ange Postecoglou’s side at their very worst. His save in the sixth minute of added time stopped Spurs from suffering the most embarrassing defeat in the club’s 142-year history.

This past week is a perfect microcosm of Spurs’ season: outstanding one game and abject the next.

Since the end of October, they have six wins out of 18 in regulation time. Those victories were against Manchester City (twice), Aston Villa, Manchester United, Southampton and Liverpool.

That tendency to raise their game against esteemed opponents adds another thick layer of intrigue to Wednesday’s north London derby against Arsenal at the Emirates.

Although Guglielmo Vicario is back in training after sustaining a fractured ankle in November, Kinsky is expected to start and make his Premier League debut in one of the most feverish fixtures in the top flight.

The Gunners, reeling from a damaging week, will naturally try to unnerve and unsettle Kinsky, especially from inswinging corners to the back post which have become a staple of their attacking arsenal and troubled more established keepers than Spurs’ No 31.

It’s a huge occasion and one that Kinsky’s former teammates and coaches believe he will relish.

“When we met in the locker room he seemed very confident to me but he was very nice and friendly,” says Viktor Budinsky, who rivalled Kinsky for the No 1 position at FK Pardubice where Slavia had loaned him out last season.

“He is incredibly strong mentally and that is important in today’s football. I believe that he will prepare for the match as best he can and show his best.”

Kinsky made his first-team debut with Dukla Prague at just 17 and it took only seven appearances in their colours to attract the attentions of Slavia.

His standout attributes at the time were “healthy self-confidence and hard work,” according to Günter Bittengel, Dukla’s academy manager.

“For his early age, he was very confident and calm in matches,” he says. “He wasn’t afraid of difficult situations in the build-up play and in his passing game. You could clearly see his potential and talent.”

The speed at which Spurs moved to complete the deal early in the transfer window suggests the club was confident he could make an immediate impact.

Last week, Kinsky’s agent Viktor Kolar revealed that Spurs chairman Daniel Levy and technical director Johan Lange flew into Prague on New Year’s Day for two days of negotiations to thrash out terms with the Czech league leaders.

“The negotiations were intense, stretching late into the night. But it worked, and I’m happy about that,” he told Flashscore.

The Czech Republic U21 international seems like the perfect profile of player for a club rebuilding around youth.

He is both a big prospect and a big personality, like fellow recent recruits Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall.

And similarly to Gray, Kinsky has a footballing family name to uphold.

Kinsky’s father Antonin Snr, was one of the best Czech goalkeepers of his generation, a league and cup winner with Slovan Liberec and a six-time senior international. He was selected for both Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup.

Kinsky Snr has inevitably been a major influence on his son’s career. Although the ball-playing demands on keepers have evolved dramatically since he retired in 2010, Kinsky Snr recognised that the role in the modern game was changing.

According to Czech football journalist Tomas Danicek, Kinsky Jnr regularly played as an outfield player until he was “13 or 14 years old,” on the advice of his father who felt it would give him an edge over other young keepers.

“He already had a very good foundation in his footwork and the Dukla style certainly helped him in this area of development,” Bittengel says.

“He was and has been brought up to this style for a long time by his father, who was also an excellent goalkeeper. I don’t think he had any weaknesses.”

“Kinsky is really capable of playing with both feet,” he says. “Basically you can’t really recognise if he is using his right or left based on the accuracy or power which is incredibly unique.”

He is also adept at coming for crosses and his preference to catch the ball rather than punch it is almost a throwback. In a way, his style straddles two eras of goalkeeping.

Being able to turn to his old man for advice will have been invaluable in those developmental years but following in the family business creates pressure too. There are big gloves to fill.

Kinsky has used his father’s success as a motivational tool to make the most of his ability. Last summer, he wanted to leave Slavia to play regularly after spending two-and-a-half seasons out on loan at Vyskov and Pardubice.

He was convinced to stick around after regular No 1 Jindrich Stanek suffered an injury at Euro 2024 and it was a good job he did. Kinsky kept 13 clean sheets in 19 league games in the first half of the season to help Slavia go seven points clear at the summit.

“He has it set in his head that he wants to prove something in football and he does everything to make it happen,” Budinsky said.

Were it not for the emergence of Petr Cech, his father may well have earnt more international caps.

Inevitably, comparisons between the Czechia’s best-ever goalkeeper and his long-term heir have sprung up. In 2004, Cech agreed to join Chelsea at the same age as Kinsky is now, albeit from Rennes rather than directly from his homeland.

Cech was capped 124 times and won the lot during his spell at Stamford Bridge in which he established himself as one of, if not the best goalkeeper in Premier League history.

Whether Kinsky emulates Cech’s career or even comes close remains to be seen but those who have followed his development closely believe he has more to his game.

“He is compared a lot to Petr Cech, who had a similar journey,” says Bittengel. “Tonda [a nickname given to people called Antonin] is a better footballer and if he is at full strength in his next career, he can push the bar set by Petr even further.

“Distribution was definitely a weakness of his [Cech],” says Danicek. “Kinsky in a way is a very complete goalkeeper, especially at his current age.”

Cech revealed that during his time as Chelsea’s technical director, the club tracked Kinsky from before his professional bow with Dukla.

He too has been an inspiration and soundboard for Kinsky, as has Radek Cerny, his former coach at Slavia Prague who made the same direct switch to Spurs in the mid-2000s.

“He had the opportunity to talk about the transfer with people who are close to him and who have achieved something in life and sport, and one of them was Petr Cech,” Kolar said last week.

“At Slavia Prague, we were looking for a goalkeeper who could essentially act as an eleventh outfield player, someone capable of playing the ball and initiating build-up from the back,” Cerny told Flashscore.

“That was the most important factor. Having a great shot-stopper is excellent, but if they lack strong footwork and the ability to contribute to the team’s play, it’s almost useless for the modern game and its future demands.”

Kinsky’s impressive start has given Postecoglou a decision to make with Vicario closing in on a return.

Before suffering an ankle injury in the 4-0 win over City in November, Vicario had started 48 Premier League games out of 48 after joining from Empoli in 2023.

Vicario congratulated Kinsky on the pitch after his Liverpool debut and both are good characters who will spur the other on.

“We had and still have a great relationship with each other,” Budinsky says.

“In training, he was a hard worker, he often added to the goalkeeping exercises. He didn’t like it when we did some exercises and the last shot ended up in the goal, so we had to have one more series!

“We were competitors but at the same time good friends, in training we worked 100 per cent and it was always fun.

“When I was playing, he supported me, after every match we evaluated the match and it was the other way around. When he was in goal I tried to give him the best service.”

As a club Spurs have long had an undisputed first-choice keeper, with Hugo Lloris filling that role for well over a decade before handing over to Vicario.

Now, there is credible competition between two each capable of being the No 1. That can only be beneficial to Postecoglou as he plots an end to the club’s trophy drought.

Last week, an interesting statistic popped up on social media that piqued the interest of Tottenham Hotspur supporters.

The nugget in question was this: Tottenham-owned Luka Vuskovic is the highest-scoring teenager in Europe’s top 10 leagues this season.

The Croatian wonderkid has been more prolific even than Barcelona’s Lionel Messi heir apparent Lamine Yamal.

Vuskovic’s potential has been an open secret for a while. Just two days after his 16th birthday, he made his senior debut for Hajduk Split against Dinamo Zagreb in the Eternal derby, the biggest fixture in Croatian football.

In September 2023, when still only 16, Vuskovic agreed a future transfer to Spurs with the north London club committing to a reported £12m fee for a prospect with only eight senior appearances to his name. Still only 17, Vuskovic is already a regular fixture for Croatia’s U21s.

His development has been handled carefully over the past 18 months, taking in loans at Radomiak Radom in the Polish top-flight during the second half of 2023-24 and Westerlo in Belgium for the entirety of this campaign.

Vuskovic scored three goals in 14 games with Radom and has followed that with six in 20 for Westerlo. It’s an impressive strike rate, especially considering that Vuskovic is an uncompromising centre-back rather than a prodigious forward.

Vuskovic doesn’t look like a typical 17-year-old. He has a half sleeve on his left forearm for one thing, proof of Croatia’s more lax tattoo regulations compared to the UK, but he is also tall, powerfully built and a monster in the air.

He has won 72 aerial duels – the second most in Belgium’s Jupiler League – and has a 68.9 per cent success rate overall. You suspect that appetite to attack the ball will serve him well in England.

“Luka has certainly been the revelation at Westerlo this season,” Kersten Steurbaut, a sports journalist at Gazet van Antwerpen, tells The i Paper.

“He scored four times with his head, which is undoubtedly an asset. His heading strength is a great weapon, but perhaps even more remarkable is his physical strength.

“He is barely 17 but already has the body of a player who has been playing professional football for 10 years.

“That is undoubtedly the result of his dedication. Every morning he is one of the first players at the club to do some extra training in the gym.”

As his most recent goal against Club Brugge on Boxing Day proved, he is not just the second coming of Domagoj Vida; there is technical proficiency to go with the aerial power.

As a looping header came back across the box, Vuskovic arced his body into position, timed his leap to perfection and thumped a spectacular acrobatic volley past former Liverpool keeper Simon Mignolet.

“Even the home crowd treated him to applause,” Steurbaut says.

Goals for a defender are a bonus. Gabriel Magalhaes is the Premier League’s most prolific defender, but Mikel Arteta wouldn’t pick him every week if he couldn’t do his day job properly. Vuskovic has shown plenty of promise besides ostentatious overhead kicks.

“Defensively, he is strong, both in the duels and playing out and positionally too,” Steurbaut says. Vuskovic has a higher pass accuracy rate than any of his teammates who have played more than 10 league games. Although Westerlo are 12th in a 16-team division, he is comfortable at that level.

As you’d expect of someone still so callow, he is not yet the finished product and the job of Spurs coaches will be to develop him further.

“He looks nonchalant at times, so a mistake does creep in,” Steurbaut says. “His speed is also a working point. Against fast strikers, he gets finished off in the transition.”

That second point is significant given how advanced Tottenham’s back four play under Ange Postecoglou. They are severely weakened when Micky van de Ven is unavailable given his frightening recovery pace and as of yet haven’t found a suitable alternative to the flying Dutchman.

However, given Tottenham’s defensive issues – 18-year-old midfielder Archie Gray and back-up full-back Djed Spence were the centre-backs for the second half against Newcastle last weekend – and the faith that Postecoglou has shown in other teenagers this season, it is not unreasonable to assume that Vuskovic may have been given a chance in recent weeks.

Possessing one of the most highly-rated young defenders in Europe but not being able to select them at the peak of an unprecedented injury crisis is typical Tottenham.

Brexit red tape means that Spurs knew they wouldn’t be able to use Vuskovic for the best part of two years when they bought him. Since 1 January 2021, English clubs have been unable to acquire players under the age of 18 from outside of the UK due to more stringent freedom of movement laws.

The regulations mean that Vuskovic won’t technically become a Tottenham player until this summer when his five-year contract with the club will officially start.

Should he maintain or even accelerate his development in the second half of the season, Vuskovic may be part of their first-team squad next term.

The future of another Spurs youngster playing alongside Vuskovic in Antwerp is less certain.

Alfie Devine, who became Tottenham’s all-time youngest appearance maker and goalscorer during an FA Cup tie against Marine in January 2021, is also spending the campaign at Westerlo after linking up with them in September.

The 20-year-old has scored three times in 14 league appearances but hasn’t made as dramatic an impact on the team and the league as Vuskovic has.

“No doubt he has good feet and could push Westerlo to a higher level with his qualities, but his impact on the team is still too limited,” Steurbaut says.

“As a No 10, he cannot make his mark on the team enough. He is also often absent for long periods during a match.

“His predecessor Nicolas Madsen [who joined QPR] was more involved, asking for the ball more often. I think Alfie should be able to do the same.”

That both Vuskovic and Devine are at Westerloo, though, speaks to the growing cooperation between the clubs.

In November, Westerlo outlined their intention to “explore deeper and more extensive collaboration opportunities in the future”, with Spurs following constructive discussions with the Premier League club’s hierarchy.

They added that the loaning of Vuskovic and Devine “may be the first step toward a future exchange of ideas, players and resources”.

“At Westerlo, they are convinced that the Belgian league is a perfect learning ground for young players who are not yet ready for the Premier League,” Steurbaut adds.

Perhaps an alliance between a club with a cockerel on its badge with another nicknamed the Flying Roosters was inevitable. With Spurs accelerating plans to sign top young talent from around the globe, expect other prospects to follow in Vuskovic’s sizeable footsteps in the future.

Tottenham 1-2 Newcastle (Solanke 4’|Gordon 6’, Isak 38’)

TOTTENAM HOTSPUR STADIUM — Ange Postecoglou has become that rarest of breeds in Tottenham managers – the fall guy refusing to fall. With defeat to Newcastle, expect the relentless noise around his future to ramp up a notch but try to cut out the bluster.

The illness that ripped through the training ground this week – no lasagnas in sight – might have been a turning point, but not for the reasons you would expect. It is the essence of Postecoglou at his barnstorming best, all-guns-blazing, youngsters on the bench, backs against the wall and the world.

There is just one flaw to all this – Tottenham Hotspur lost another Premier League football match, their 10th of the season, against the same outfit who inflicted the first. They have not claimed three points at home since the Aston Villa match on 3 November.

Bug-ridden, belligerent they may have been – they went down fighting. In that light, this was an admirable display of defiance and resilience which quite possibly deserved a point. But down they went, yet again.

Postecoglou insisted afterwards that he was “hugely proud” given the circumstances. “I’m just shattered the boys didn’t get results we deserved… if that was a different day and it was an even and fair playing ground we would have won that game.”

For his part he has repeatedly said he is “sick of excuses”. That risks him being judged without context.

The first six minutes were both the best and worst of Spurs and the absolute nadir of the handball rule. Lucas Bergvall was at the centre of it all – an unchallenged surge into the final third leading to Pedro Porro’s cross, headed in by Dominic Solanke ahead of the returning Sven Botman.

Not 120 seconds had passed at the other end when Bergvall’s cross would have found a teammate, had it not been intercepted by Joelinton’s arm. In a “natural position” – per the VAR’s statement – or not. The advantage is unmistakeable – and ludicrously unfair.

All that remained was for Bruno Guimaraes to tee up Anthony Gordon, a forward with the ice coolness an onlooking Thomas Tuchel will have been accustomed to in his winter break in Bavaria. Work started this week for the England manager and he must have been delighted by both early goals, Gordon’s strike his 17th in 23 games against the Big Six since his arrival two years ago.

Dan Burn was equally fortunate not to receive a second yellow for a handball that was nevertheless given by referee Andrew Madley. Newcastle’s second, at least, was incontestable. Inevitable even, Jacob Murphy having repeatedly exploited the space created by Djed Spence (at left-back) being dragged into the middle.

Murphy’s cross took a touch off Radu Dragusin on its way to Alexander Isak for the tap-in. Eddie Howe might venture it could have been more had Anthony Gordon been given a penalty for a collision with Dejan Kulusevski.

Now, to the mitigation. Whenever it appears as though this Spurs squad cannot possibly get any more vulnerable, it does. Two of the back four were out of position. Brandon Austin, who turns 26 on Wednesday, was in goal for his debut and just his 24th professional game; he deserves huge credit for his performance.

Dragusin, one of the players who Postecoglou said had “got off his sick bed” to play, was replaced by Sergio Reguilon at half-time, forcing Spence to centre-back. The Romanian was the last man standing after injuries to Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Ben Davies. Postecoglou finished the afternoon with no available centre-backs whatsoever.

How is it possible to judge any coach in those circumstances? In the boardroom, is one answer. With the punctuality of Michael Buble thawing out for Christmas, we are fast approaching Ryan Mason season.

The notable difference is that Postecoglou retains enough goodwill for his relationship with Daniel Levy not to have broken down. Antonio Conte, Jose Mourinho and Harry Redknapp all left after a point of no return in that respect.

Mauricio Pochettino departed with Spurs 14th in the table, in November, a position not dissimilar to where they are likely to be after the weekend’s other results. The Australian is the only Spurs manager to last a full campaign since Pochettino in 2018-19. The pattern is familiar – and painful.

Levy’s conundrum, whether to stick or twist, does not usually come so early in the year, nor with such an unprecedented list of absentees – including two world-class centre-backs, a left-back, two forwards and their best midfielder.

Then again, Should Liverpool rock up and put another half a dozen goals past his team, this season could effectively be over by 10pm on Wednesday night, or at least its last serious hopes extinguished. Spurs remain in the Europa League and FA Cup – both long, arduous journeys which this fragile squad will struggle to sustain.

What complicates his decision further is that results were so mixed in the second half of last season, which discounts the idea that this is a crisis borne of injuries and other various misfortunes alone. It has become increasingly difficult to assess where the genuine caveats end and the reality checks have to begin.

And yet the highs are so mountainous, when Postecoglou’s methods really take hold, that it would take a seriously shrewd, well-timed and successful appointment to make sacking him now the right decision. Levy does not have a track record of those. It is time for the unthinkable – patience, at least until the end of the season.

We are just a few days into 2025 and already Tottenham Hotspur are coming to terms with losing another key player to a long-term injury. Happy New Year, Ange.

Destiny Udogie is the newest member of the walking wounded club, joining six teammates in an increasingly crowded Hotspur Way treatment room after pulling up against Wolves last Sunday.

It is rotten luck for the 22-year-old, who has now suffered five injuries (four to his hamstrings) in a season and a half at Tottenham. The Italian missed the Euros last summer after undergoing surgery to repair a torn quadriceps.

Early reports indicate that he could be unavailable for between six and 10 weeks.

His absence also exacerbates Ange Postecoglou’s defensive crisis at the worst possible time with fixtures against the Premier League’s two most in-form teams coming up in the next six days.

Spurs face Newcastle on Sunday and Liverpool in a Carabao Cup semi-final next Wednesday. A makeshift back five of whom Pedro Porro is the only regular, will be tasked with keeping Alexander Isak and Mo Salah quiet. Not ideal.

Unfortunately, Udogie’s misfortune was entirely predictable and not just because of his historic fitness record.

Tottenham’s game against Newcastle will be their 29th of the campaign and they have roughly played a fixture every four days since August.

Fifa’s response to long-held concerns over an overcrowded calendar was to invent a Club World Cup in the off-season, an idea that nobody from players to coaches, fans and broadcasters seems to care about.

Uefa are no angels either, after needlessly bolting additional games into their competitions for no reason other than revenue.

Football’s governing bodies warrant some blame for Udogie’s latest setback but it can be carved up and shared around.

Tottenham’s failure to buy a specialist left-back in the summer transfer window seemed risky at the time; it looks nothing short of negligent now.

Udogie is the only left-back that Postecoglou trusts. Ben Davies, who is also nursing a hamstring injury of his own, lacks the dynamism and attacking edge that Postecoglou requires and has instead been repurposed as centre-back cover.

Sergio Reguilon is still knocking about but only because there were no takers for him last summer. The 28-year-old, who will leave for free in June, has spent the last two seasons on loan at Atletico Madrid, Manchester United and Brentford.

He marked his first competitive Spurs appearance in over two-and-a-half years against United last month with an Instagram post captioned: “Look mum, I played a football game yesterday.” Top bantz from one of Tottenham’s many transfer flops.

This situation could hardly have been unforeseen. Udogie missed 10 Premier League games last season due to muscle injuries and that was without having to play European football on top.

His susceptibility to pulls and strains allied to Spurs qualifying for the Europa League meant that the club should have prioritised buying a new left-back.

For some reason, they didn’t and Postecoglou has a right to feel like he wasn’t properly backed. Dominic Solanke aside, Spurs bought young players with future seasons in mind more so than the current one. That policy may help the club in the long-term but it hasn’t helped the manager in the short-term.

Postecoglou himself could have done things differently. Tottenham’s inability to integrate academy prospects into the first-team and haphazard squad building in recent years forced the Australian to name a reduced 23-man squad for the Europa League to comply with Uefa’s stringent “homegrown” rules.

However, he decided to pick Djed Spence as the fall guy, depriving him of full-back cover on both sides for Spurs’ first six games in Europe. Spence would have been infinitely more useful in those matches than Timo Werner has been.

That call resulted in Udogie playing more European minutes – 258 in total – than he might have done while also limiting Spence’s game time, ensuring he was less ready to step in for Premier League matches.

Postecoglou’s reluctance to use Spence prior to the last few weeks has looked like a misstep given the 24-year-old has acquitted himself well, a foolish red card at the City Ground on Boxing Day aside.

Udogie and Porro have both suffered from dips in form and naturally looked fatigued having started 18 and 16 Premier League games respectively. Spence has only started three, his first against Southampton on 15 December. Why has his chance been so long coming?

Postecoglou’s questionable squad management has placed a further strain on players already operating at the upper limits of their physical capacity.

Being a Spurs defender is arguably one of the toughest jobs in the Premier League given how many high-intensity sprints they make, whether underlapping or overlapping runs forward or high-speed chases back.

While it is unfortunate that Spurs have lost four defenders – Udogie, Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero and Davies – to hamstring injuries at the same time, it’s not purely incidental either.

Can such a relentless approach work for a team competing in what is widely regarded to be the most intense domestic league on the planet and on four different fronts? Increasingly, it seems like the answer is no.

Last January, Postecoglou acknowledged that the hamstring injuries Spurs were suffering then were “a consequence of the way we play and the way we train”.

He added: “When we get a more robust and deeper squad, we’ll be able to overcome it.”

Twelve months on and Spurs don’t have a significantly deeper squad and don’t seem to be any more robust either. Unless reinforcements arrive quickly in this window or Postecgolou tweaks things, they will remain hamstrung by pinging hamstrings.