Tottenham told when they'll no longer be a 'Big Six' club as former Spurs star admits friends are 'pulling their hair out' over relegation battle

Tottenham finished fifth in 2023-24, under the guidance of Australian tactician Ange Postecoglou. He vowed to deliver tangible success in his second campaign at the helm, and duly delivered when overseeing a continental triumph that snapped a 17-year wait for trophy-winning celebrations.

Postecoglou was still relieved of his duties, having seen Spurs slip to 17th in the English top-flight, with reins being passed to former Brentford boss Thomas Frank. The Dane lasted just eight months at the helm after becoming caught up in another relegation battle - with Tottenham looking anxiously over collective shoulders.

Igor Tudor has taken over on an interim basis, with current USMNT coach Mauricio Pochettino seeing an emotional return to familiar surroundings speculated on, but whoever guides the club forward will have a big rebuilding project on their hands.

Quizzed on when Tottenham could tumble out of the fabled ‘Big Six’, with the likes of Newcastle and Aston Villa staking claims to join that pack, Zamora - speaking in association with Gambling.com, who rank and compare top-rated UK Casinos - told GOAL: “For a team like Spurs, I think you can probably only go under the radar for two years. That third year, which will be next season, you have to deliver some sort of performance. You have to be in that top six and consistently look like you are there.

“I’ve got a lot of friends who are Spurs fans and they are pulling their hair out, and have done for the last year. They cannot believe what is going on. Whoever comes through the door they give the manager two or three games and if they haven’t performed, good luck to them! It’s a huge club with massive potential.”

Postecoglou has claimed that Spurs may already be overstating their status in English football, with the enigmatic 60-year-old seeing enough across his spell at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to suggest that a standing among the elite is undeserved.

He told The Overlap’s Stick to Football podcast: “It's a real curious club in terms of understanding what are they trying to build? You know, what are they? Obviously, they've built an unbelievable stadium, unbelievable training facilities. But when you look at the expenditure, particularly, you know, their wages structure, they're not a big club.

“I saw that because when we were trying to sign players, we weren't in the market for those players. There's certain players that we... I mean, at the end of my first year, when we finished fifth, for me, okay, how do you go from fifth to really challenging? Well, we had to sign Premier League-ready players.

“You know, I was looking at Pedro Neto and [Bryan] Mbeumo and [Antoine] Semenyo at the time, Marc Guehi, because I said we need, if we're going to go from fifth to there, that's what the other big clubs would do in that moment. And those three teenagers are outstanding young players and I think they'll be great players for Tottenham, but they're not going to get you from fifth to fourth and third.

“But what was coming out from the club was that 'no, we're a club that can compete on all fronts'. So when you say, you've obviously got great experience as a manager, you've managed it all over the world at certain clubs. Is Tottenham different to those other clubs in terms of getting what you want onto the pitch or looking to take the club forward? Well, they're all unique, they're all different. But, you know, when you walk into Tottenham, what you see everywhere is 'to dare is to do'. It's everywhere. And yet their actions are almost the antithesis of that.

“Whether you like or dislike him, give credit to Daniel [Levy] because that path has got a new stadium, new facilities, but taking a safe path, I think what they didn't realise that to actually win, you've got to take some risks at some point. And that's the DNA of the club.

“I still felt like, you know, Tottenham as a club was saying 'we're one of the big boys' and the reality is I don't think they are in terms of my experience over the last two years of how they act.”

Things are not about to get any easier for Spurs, who are through to the last-16 of Champions League competition this season, with Tudor’s first game at the helm set to see them take in a north London derby date with arch-rivals Arsenal on Sunday.