Tottenham are in a relegation scrap: Years of negligence in the transfer market has caught up with Spurs and Daniel Levy - now they risk the unthinkable

The first sign of Tottenham's decline ironically came around 12 months before their trip to the Champions League final, with the club going a year-and-a-half without an incoming. This was despite then-manager Mauricio Pochettino's desperate plea to help rebuild a playing squad he felt had hit the glass ceiling, and it's a minor miracle he was able to lead them to the brink of continental glory.

"When you talk about Tottenham, everyone says you have an amazing house but you need to put in the furniture," said the Argentine, half-referencing the stadium move. "If you want to have a lovely house maybe you need better furniture."

Chairman Daniel Levy has become notorious for shying away from the spotlight, particularly when Spurs seem to be in trouble. He did, at least, provide an explanation of this staggering lack of transfer activity at a meeting with the club's Supporters' Trust in October 2018. False presumptions that certain players would leave in order to free up funds and space was one reason cited, but concerningly, 'transfers were complicated with several variables' was another. This is the kind of remark that would leave Roy Keane flabbergasted and telling people to do their job.

By the time Pochettino finally got some new faces through the door in 2019, it was too late. The cycle had ended with that team and he was the one who paid the price, with Levy hiring Jose Mourinho - a man he claimed to have been the second-best manager in the world at the time, despite that clearly not being the case.

To the shock of no one, Mourinho didn't work out. He ought to have been sacked long before the 2021 Carabao Cup final, yet Levy chose until days before that showdown with Pep Guardiola's Manchester City to axe him. After roughly two months of searching for a successor, the job landed at the feet of Nuno Espirito Santo, who lasted about the same timespan into the 2021-22 season before he too was unceremoniously fired.

Then came Antonio Conte, the only manager to lead Tottenham to a top-four finish since Pochettino left. To the Italian's credit, he figured out how to get the best out of the Harry Kane and Son Heung-min duo without compromising at the other end of the pitch. He wanted to bridge the gap to the title contenders and fight for more than Champions League qualification. Just one player was signed in his only summer window that immediately improved the starting XI - Ivan Perisic, at this point in his mid-thirties - and three-quarters of the way into a challenging season professionally and personally, Conte lost his job after an astonishing 10-minute rant at a press conference digging out his players and the board.

In Pochettino's five full seasons, Spurs finished fifth, third, second, third and fourth. Since then, it's been sixth, seventh, fourth, eighth and fifth. They still haven't won a trophy since 2008.

It can't be forgotten that Levy did well to build Tottenham up as a contending club again after spending the nineties and early-noughties in the wilderness, but it is equally as impressive how he's lost a large proportion of the fanbase since his crowning moment of the stadium move.

At the start of the first coronavirus lockdown, there was significant backlash to the furloughing of club staff, so much so that this was quickly reversed. One year later, Spurs decided to throw their hat into the short-lived European Super League ring. More recently, soaring ticket prices in spite of a lack of success have been protested, as has the decision to remove concession prices. The sentiment among regular match-goers is they are being priced out for tourists.

During Sunday's 2-1 defeat at home to Leicester City, Tottenham supporters chanted against Levy, while a banner was unfurled in the single-tier south stand claiming it was 'time for change'. Levy has always been able to fall back on his prestige and expertise as a businessman, but as so many have pointed out, Tottenham are a club first and foremost, and that appears to have been forgotten.

Similarly to Nuno two years prior, Postecoglou was handed the head coach's job when other candidates, notably Arne Slot, decided against taking it. To make matters worse, the sale of Kane - a man whose quality was definitely taken for granted - to Bayern Munich was sanctioned on the opening week of the season. Had Tottenham plummeted into the no-man's-land of mid-table, it would have been understandable.

Alas, Postecoglou managed to steer Spurs to a respectable fifth-place finish, only two points behind Aston Villa in the Champions League spots. There were signs of promise for this new era. Like Conte though, the Australian was afforded only one player to come straight into his starting XI, as well as three teenagers and an extended loan for Timo Werner.

The squad needed surgery even prior to the injury crisis that has plagued their current campaign. Postecoglou's Tottenham are now on life support and he is hanging by a thread. After every defeat comes a new report that the board want to stick with the Australian and support him through this period, though all the while doing little to actually stand that sentiment up.

Unlike his predecessors who weren't afraid to make their ill-feelings towards the board known, Postecoglou has dressed up his request for reinforcements in a dignified manner and more along the lines of a cry for 'help'.

"I've said all along, the players need help and I've also said the club are working hard in that area to try to alleviate some of those problems," has been the constant message. "The players are going out there and giving everything they can because we can't call off games. We've got another game in three days' time that these players have to front up for. The injury situation will ease and I'm confident they will sort of help us. Even one more player coming in, just in the short term will give us an opportunity, at least to navigate these last 10 days, two weeks, of what's been a really hard slog for this group of players."

Through the autumn, Spurs' main issue was their wild inconsistency. They were a team capable of winning away at both Manchester clubs with a combined score of 7-0, yet would be too easily undone when a game wasn't going their way - 12 of their 13 defeats in the Premier League have been by a single goal in matches where the opposition simply shut up shop.

Those would be understandable teething issues for a project team at or close to full strength, but Postecoglou has not been afforded that luxury. A detailed report from The Athletic into their spate of injuries this season did not necessarily blame the head coach, though did suggest his high-energy style in training as well as matches hasn't done much to relieve the strain.

'Ange-ball' in full flight is breathtaking. It has made Tottenham one of the best watches in all of Europe and they have a clear identity again. But it's a style that often requires perfection in order to succeed, and at the moment, Spurs aren't even good enough to get lucky. There's been an absence of scrappy wins and draws, their penchant for late goals and comebacks from last season evaporating into thin air.

Tottenham, under Pochettino or anyone else, have been unable to win major honours because when you scratch beneath the surface of the first XI, there has always appeared a serious lack of quality and options. Only now has that truly been exposed with Postecoglou's makeshift lineups which are coming potentially at the detriment of his players' careers, with several soldiering on through injury just to help the cause.

Tottenham were in mutiny when Postecoglou rocked up in June 2023. Matchday protests had become commonplace down the stretch of a miserable campaign, which was capped off by the booing of a season highlights compilation.

Initial results and performances stemmed that tide. Levy even went as far as to cheekily saying 'we've got our Tottenham back' in a fans' forum in September 2023. That low ebb is devouring the club again, and the head coach has sympathised with supporters.

"Certainly something I wanted to try and do when I took on this role is to try to unify the club and create an environment here where we are all focused on the one thing," he said on Sunday. "Obviously it hasn't worked out that way. It's understandable, like you said, the fans are not happy with our current situation. It is a difficult one to navigate because we need them right now, especially at home to create an atmosphere.

"It wasn't that long ago we played Liverpool here and it was a great night. Everyone was focused on the one thing. Like I said, the one thing I keep saying and I think it is important to acknowledge, the players are giving everything for this club and I think that is something that needs to be acknowledged by everyone."

Ordinarily, Postecoglou would be given his marching orders and would have few complaints about it. With Spurs, it's never ordinary though. He continues to be afforded leeway thanks to the injury list, recognition the project was trending in the right sort of direction beforehand. Postecoglou has also, by all accounts, not lost the dressing room.

Yet another crucial factor may simply be this job would have few takers should it become available again, particularly mid-season and Tottenham tumbling down the table. Would the likes of Bournemouth's Andoni Iraola or Brentford's Thomas Frank sacrifice their current work to try and sort this mess? We are exiting the Premier League's 'big six' era and that is terrible news for Spurs, who were often closer to the other 14 in terms of expenditure and are no longer one of the division's smarter clubs.

Levy and Co so desperately want Tottenham to be considered a premier destination and elite-level club, though rarely back that up and put their money where their mouths are. According to Swiss Ramble, Spurs had by a fair margin the lowest wages-to-turnover ratio among the 20 clubs listed in the 2025 Deloitte Money League at 42%. You cannot pretend to be a super-club without spending like one forever.

When the final whistle sounded at the end of Spurs' loss to Leicester, there were the traditional boos. That was standard. What wasn't was the freeze of the last remaining supporters. Once the jeers died out and the blaring music used to try and mask it faded into the background, thousands of people remained stood on the spot, motionless and expressionless.

The players, on their last legs, still came round for a lap of honour, and they were met with warm applause. The blank faces stayed blank all the same. This was the recognition that the threat of relegation was real and tangible.

Over the last 10 matches, only Southampton (one) have taken fewer Premier League points than Tottenham (four). Even Manchester United have accrued 10 in that time. Against the five teams still below Tottenham in the table, they have taken only seven points from seven matches thus far - it's hard to tell who this team in its current guise are capable of beating.

Spurs' gruelling schedule continues with their final Europa League group phase match at home to Swedish side Elfsborg on Thursday, with victory likely needed to secure automatic progression to the last 16 and avoid further fixture congestion in a two-legged play-off. They then travel to Brentford, who are three points shy of the Premier League's best home record. Following what has been billed as Postecoglou's do-or-die Carabao Cup semi-final second leg at Liverpool and a trip to Aston Villa in the FA Cup, Premier League encounters with Manchester United, Ipswich, Manchester City and Bournemouth follow. Ask yourself this - how many of those games do you really envisage Spurs winning?

The silver linings for Tottenham are that key players such as Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven, Destiny Udogie and Guglielmo Vicario are nearing comebacks, while they sit eight points clear of the drop zone and the average needed to secure safety over the last five years has dropped from the fabled number of 38 to 32.4. Why we are having these conversations about Spurs heading into February of a season is enough embarrassment even if they do stay up.