Despite Igor Tudor’s attempt to get Tottenham Hotspur to look forward and “look in the mirror” at themselves, some around the club can’t get certain images of Sunday out of their minds.
The players naturally looked defeated. However, those present said the hierarchy appeared to be “haunted”.
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Obviously, the biggest home defeat to Arsenal since 1978 was bad enough, but this was obviously even worse.
There was a realization that a change of manager would not bring much change, especially with the negative atmosphere surrounding the club. There’s obviously no quick fix. Tudor has a huge task on their hands, and possibly the most difficult in the club’s history.
Most importantly, it means they were right and relegation is now a possibility.
Fulham vs. Tottenham is likely to be the most important game of the weekend, because of how it will tell us the most – more than the north London derby – about what Tudor can actually do with this team.
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If Spurs win, the atmosphere will immediately improve. They finally have breathing room and the positive feeling that comes with their first win of the year. A draw would at least show some progress, even if it’s not exactly what they need.
However, failure of any kind does set off alarm bells.
Losing to Fulham is a wake-up call for Tottenham (Getty)
The tension can be suffocating. The pressure is huge.
While it was rightly assumed that Tottenham’s relegation would be the biggest in the Premier League, and possibly the biggest in English football since Manchester United’s relegation in 1973-74, what may be more relevant is how the real reason for their relegation frankly reflected shocking underperformance. If they do go down, it will be one of the most extraordinary feats of reverse alchemy in football history; a shocking waste.
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The finger has been pointed at Leeds United in 2003-04, but the way they overextended financially made their decline inevitable.
Tottenham Hotspur face the opposite problem. This should have been the inevitable opposite. This shouldn’t be possible.
For Tottenham Hotspur, the world’s ninth-richest club, it should not have faced relegation (Getty Images)
They are the ninth richest club in the world by revenue. Owners are now aggressively looking to spend money and raise their relatively high wage bills even higher.
In this day and age, most sports have never been more geared toward those who are already wealthy. As has been said many times on these pages in the past, this is not the same as 1974 when the old First Division was relatively equal in strength. There’s a 90% correlation between payroll and work done, and the gap has never been greater.
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So just like Manchester United were relegated just six years after becoming European champions, Tottenham could be relegated just five years after joining the Super League.
Tottenham Hotspur could be relegated five years after joining the Super League (Getty Images)
In its own way, that says a lot about modern football.
But of course there’s more to it than that.
This week it will be ten years since they reached the top of the league in the ‘Leicester season’.
It’s been seven years since they actually reached the Champions League final, which was supposed to be the club’s launch moment.
Now that should be the biggest regret, the ghost of what could have been.
It’s just a peak now and they’ve fallen a long way from there.
Tottenham should have moved on from narrowly reaching the Champions League final in 2019 (PA Archive)
A bigger frustration — especially for backers — is that there’s no sudden drop, and no key date by which everything can be tracked. Instead, fans have long complained about how the ownership approach makes this scenario increasingly likely.
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There have long been questions about what the actual goals of this hierarchy are. Representatives of the Lewis family will of course insist this is for the ultimate success of the club.
Fans will dispute this, pointing to the limited investment over 25 years and questioning whether it’s just about having football assets there, or whether it’s something that can eventually be sold.
The view from some other Premier League owners and executives is that they will eventually need to sell in order to freshen up. There is too much “baggage”.
Some other Premier League bosses believe the Lewis family need to sell Tottenham to five clubs to start over (AFP via Getty Images)
As one senior source said, despite ownership, any club can be successful, but their prospects still play a decisive role. When they are completely immersed in victory, it usually shows in the structure and appointments.
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It can also be bidirectional. Again in contrast to the other side of north London, Kroenke’s ownership is said to have really come alive once Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal started winning.
However, the discussion is complicated by the fact that the Lewis family has long given Daniel Levy so much power.
Ironically, it was the departure of the former chairman – something many fans had long desired – that brought about the greater collapse.
Daniel Levy’s eager departure brings bigger collapse (PA Archive)
This is not necessarily meant to defend or criticize Levy. However, his sudden departure prevented the transfer of responsibility, so now everything falls apart.
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The lack of football expertise has been exposed. The lack of football philosophy has been exposed. The mismatched nature of the squad has been exposed, long shaped by the decision under Levy to keep the player wage bill such a low proportion of revenue when they could have paid more. One insider is quoted as saying that despite participating in the Europa League last season, the team is still a team with considerable “scar tissue”. There is growing speculation about “cliques” in the dressing room.
Some sources have similarly noted that Spurs did hire potentially transformative figures in the recent past, such as Michael Edwards, only to have them leave.
Michael Edwards was integral to the rise of Liverpool’s sporting director (PA) after being chief analyst at Tottenham Hotspur
All of this puts Tudor in the unenviable position of trying to make sense of something that is confusing on every level.
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This is said to be what “haunted” the top brass on Sunday, with every issue suddenly coalescing and escalating significantly; lack of time; pressure.
Of course, this is not the end. There is still talent in the team. Tudor is said to have felt the team suited his formation as well.
A victory can change everything, allow everyone to settle down and return everything to normal.
However, it should not be overlooked that this alone is an incredible situation. One of the world’s richest clubs, once arrogant enough to think it should join the breakaway hierarchy, now relies on Hail Mary appointments and an intangible sense of goodwill to escape a historic nightmare.
Igor Tudor charged with saving Tottenham Hotspur from historically humiliating relegation (PA Wire)
Of course, discussions have already begun about what demotion actually means. Spurs have a lot of very high fixed costs and partnerships and in this case they don’t have the same TV funding, sponsors will change and matchday revenue will drop. At the same time, some investors see the downgrade as a huge opportunity to trade on the cheap. Spurs are seen as “built on the business side”, perhaps differently to the rest of the club.
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What’s even more interesting is how they might turn things around if they break free. With Tottenham having so many advantages, some in the football world also see this as a huge opportunity in this regard.
That just sums up the situation.
In order to do that, however, they need a win to change everything.