by 
Before Tottenham’s defeats at Everton and Leicester, the idea that Ange PostoCcoou’s side were in danger of being sucked into a relegation battle was still fanciful, more of a provocative talking point for pundits and fans alike. rivals than a serious consideration.
Now, however, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Spurs are truly falling contenders after following a 3-2 defeat at Goodison Park with a 2-1 home defeat to the Foxes.
Everton had won just one of their previous 12 league games, while Leicester entered Sunday’s meeting on the back of seven consecutive defeats, with one win in their last 14 top-flight matches; No wonder the concept of ‘Dr. Tottenham’ suddenly became mainstream.
Postecoglou’s side still have an eight-point cushion at the bottom three, but they are in freefall and it has reached the point where you wonder where their next league win is coming from.
Next up is Sunday’s trip to Brentford, who are one of the league’s form teams at GTECH and have been comfortably top of the table for a run of back-to-back games in west London against the top four .
Meanwhile, Spurs conclude the opening phase of the Europa League at home to If Elfsborg on Thursday, needing a result to finish in the top eight and avoid an unwanted two-legged play-off next month.
With little prospect of significant rotation between games, PostoCoglou’s depleted squad is virtually guaranteed to be less fresh than the Bees next weekend.
Spurs’ concern is that such an exhausted and strained group of players cannot count on a result against anyone in the Premier League where the middle class is prosperous and the comfortable majority of clubs are well-coached, hard to beat and full of danger.
This season and last, the three newly promoted clubs have offered most opponents some breathing space, but Spurs have already lost at home to Ipswich (before their injury crisis took hold) and Leicester.
Postecoglou is confident Spurs’ form will pick up once their injured players return to fitness, which also appears to be the calculation of embattled chairman Daniel Levy, with the club yet to respond to the head coach’s repeated pleas for new signings this month.
But there’s no guarantee the return of the Spurs stars will be transformative, especially since there’s every chance the injuries will continue to pile up.
postcoglou’s remaining players have been pushed to the limit by months of midweek games with limited rotation, and the head coach revealed that “at least two” of his XI, including Pape Matar Sarr, do not were unfit to start against Leicester but ‘desperate’ to help the team.
Sarr lasted 54 minutes before hooking up with Richarlison, who “felt his groin [and] should have come off at half-time,” according to Postecoglou.
The returns of centre-backs Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven – the next two ‘taxi out of the ranks’, as the head coach likes to say – would be a huge boost, but they won’t help a son Heung- min jaded or Dejan Kuluski press forward, nor energize a creaking midfield.
While Spurs’ physical conditioning remains the biggest concern, there is also the psychology of their situation. They have made losing the league into a habit, taking just five points from a possible 33 and losing five of their last six top-flight matches.
Such a difficult trend is not easy to reverse, particularly when the Premier League is already a lost cause and everyone connected to the club seems to have pinned their hopes of salvaging the season across all three cup competitions.
There is no obvious solution for Spurs, leaving Levy, who was targeted again by supporters in the defeat to Leicester, in a tight situation.
Postecoglou is not primarily to blame for the crisis – which lies with the levy – but neither does he seem the ideal manager for their plight.
Australian and high-octane football are struggling to work with exhausted players and a limited rotation, but they will not compromise their approach in any way and would rather go down on their own terms.
The 59-year-old’s dismissal could further aggravate the situation given the lack of obvious alternatives.
It would be a huge risk to put an interim manager such as Ryan Mason in charge for a potential relegation scrap, but who realistically could he appoint now to save their season?
In all likelihood, Spurs will pick up enough points to move away from danger once their long list of injured players start to return to fitness and they could, as postcoglou believes, still be ‘something special’ this season in the cuts.
But such is Spurs’ disastrous form, their clear focus on other objectives and lack of an apparent remedy for the club (besides signing new players, which Levy appears reluctant to do), the threat of Relegation can no longer be thrown out of hand.
Spurs only need to ask Leicester, who also had 24 points from 23 games in 2022-10 and was widely considered too good to go down.
The Foxes took just 10 points from their last 15 games to finish 18th; Spurs have amassed 11 points from their last 15 league games, undoubtedly relegation form.
