Let’s be crystal clear: If Tottenham Hotspur is relegated from the Premier League at the end of this season, dropping it to the second-tier English Football League Championship, it would be the most shocking demotion in history.
The north London club is just one point above the relegation zone with nine games to go. It has lost six games in a row for the first time in its history, and by the time it kicks off at Liverpool on Sunday, it could be in the bottom three of the league.
“Right now, we’re just taking blow after blow after blow,” defender Micky van de Ven told the Dutch broadcaster Ziggo Sport this week. “It’s just really tough, and now we also have an important match this weekend that I won’t be able to play in because I’m suspended. It’s a really terrible period, I can tell you that. It’s really, really awful.”
Nobody expected this from Tottenham, a “Big Six” club that should be challenging for trophies and the top of the standings. Instead, it is fighting with the likes of West Ham, Nottingham Forest, Burnley and Wolves to simply remain in the league.
Spurs' most recent match, a 3-1 loss to Crystal Palace last Thursday, was a new low. Their magnificent $1.6 billion stadium was basically empty for the second half and most of the home fans chose to walk out rather than watch their team flounder and sink even closer to a quite unbelievable relegation. The close-ups of the fans who did stay in pain, looking away in disgust and consoling one another, were powerful.
How did Spurs end up in this situation and why are they hurtling toward the most embarrassing relegation in Premier League history? Let’s dive in.
Why is this such a big story?
Spurs are one of just six clubs to have never been relegated from the Premier League since the league’s formation in 1992. They were last demoted to England’s second tier in 1977 and have only spent one season outside the top division since 1950.
Tottenham Hotspur is a huge club. It has risen over the last decade to become a genuine power in terms of spending, revenue generated and sporting consistency. Seeing Spurs line up in their incredible stadium in England’s second tier next season would be one of the most shocking sights in European soccer history.
For so long, Spurs have been the model club. Daniel Levy, their long-time chairman who left the club earlier this season, made it a priority to build the finest stadium in Europe and one of the best training grounds in the world.
Spurs pumped money into their academy, focused on buying some of Europe’s top young talent to build their future around and invested heavily on infrastructure to get them to the next level financially. But then they lost their way.
Superstars such as Harry Kane and Heung-min Son left. Spurs then spent hundreds of millions on new players in a muddled manner, dishing out big contracts to good but not great players and gambling too much on young talent rather than established stars.
Too much focus went on growing the club as a financial juggernaut and investing in the stadium, which went from being their savior to their curse. Expectations were raised for the on-field product and it has proven impossible to meet them.
The decline on the pitch has been gradual, but this season was supposed to be about solidity, rebuilding and new hope after winning their first trophy in nearly two decades.
Now it’s all about survival.
What has gone wrong this season?
Their two most creative players, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski, have been missing for most of the season with serious injuries. Kulusevski could return in May, but by then it may be too late.
Their top striker Dominic Solanke has only just returned from injury. They have also badly missed key attackers Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Bergvall, who could be back soon. Key center backs Cristian Romero and Van de Ven kept getting sent off, with the former sounding off multiple times in public about Spurs as a club and was disciplined internally.
Spurs have been abysmal defensively this season, conceding the fourth-most goals in the Premier League. Former manager Thomas Frank’s defensive tactics were supposed to calm things down, even amid an extreme injury crisis, but it didn’t work.
Fans turned on his ultra-defensive tactics, which he doubled down on with so many creative and attacking players missing through injury, and this poorly assembled squad just can’t play that way. Lacking creativity and not being very good defensively isn’t a great combination, and confidence levels have dropped to drastically low levels.
Spurs’ motto as a club is “To Dare is to Do” but they haven’t been daring in attack and the only thing they’ve been doing is shooting themselves in the foot time and time again on defense.
Off the pitch, Levy’s departure in September 2025 has obviously come as a massive shock. The much lauded (and feared) businessman created everything you now see at modern day Spurs. He was the architect of their new stadium, the vessel which was supposed to take them to the next level to compete among Europe’s elite season after season.
But when he suddenly left, it created a huge void. The Lewis family, Spurs’ majority owners through their company ENIC, don’t appear to know what they want the club to become and the executives hired to replace Levy can’t seem to deliver a clear and concise message as to what Spurs stand for. Former Managing Director Fabio Paratici being suspended for most of his time as Spurs’ chief decision-maker muddied the waters further. It’s a mess.
When Levy was in his prime and had manager Mauricio Pochettino in charge 10 years ago, things were very different. Spurs had an identity and a dream. They had a mix of youth and experience. A manager demanding a pragmatic, solid and intense brand of football. Wages were low. The promised land was the new stadium. And now that they’re there, they’re lost.
How can Spurs save themselves in the final two months?
With just nine league games to go, it’s likely Spurs will need to win at least three more games to save themselves from relegation. But where is their next point, let alone win, going to come from?
Home games against direct relegation rivals Nottingham Forest and Leeds on March 22 and May 9, respectively, are six-pointers. Those games will likely decide their fate, with trips to Wolves and Sunderland also key. There is very little margin for error.
Current manager Igor Tudor, if he’s still in charge, will hope to have some more attacking options back before the March 23 international break for the game against Forest, but definitely by early April.
That will help, but Spurs also need to embrace the situation rather than fear it. They have to defend as a unit and suffer to get over the line in games. Recently, they’ve looked frozen in key moments — but that doesn’t mean they can’t change.
Their players have proven that they can deliver in big games, as they showed during their run to winning the Europa League last season and even in one-off games earlier this season.
What happens next if Spurs are relegated?
Financial chaos is the best way to put it. According to the BBC, a season outside of the Premier League would cost Spurs about $335 million.
Tottenham’s entire model as a club is based on the very lowly aim (at least until this season) of being a Premier League club. Its stadium is littered with hospitality suites, fancy food and drink outlets and merchandise stores. It generates huge amounts of money each home game because Spurs are playing in the best league in the world and can charge a premium.
The club won’t be able to do that in the second-tier next season. Commercial deals will fall dramatically. TV money will drop drastically. Revenues will be hit hard.
The tale of two clubs similar in size to Spurs could give them some optimism amid all this, however.
Over the last 30 years, Manchester City and Newcastle United have both been relegated twice from the Premier League, though they were completely different clubs at that point.
City were relegated in 1996 and 2001 but wasn’t bought by its wealthy Abu Dhabi owners until 2008. Since then, it has become a serial winner and one of the most successful clubs in history. Newcastle went down twice, most recently in 2016, and was bought by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) in 2021 and has won a trophy and consistently been in the Champions League.
Relegation changed the future of both clubs and similar investment groups would be lining up to buy Spurs if the opportunity became available.
If Spurs were to go down, it wouldn’t be easy to re-establish themselves as a member of the Premier League’s “Big Six” again. A decade or more of languishing outside of the top 10 could come.
But as Man City and Newcastle have proved, relegation may also be necessary for Spurs to take the next step as a club and truly fulfill their potential.
