Tottenham’s reset and rebuild starts after staring into the abyss

Well done, the world’s ninth-richest football club, you didn’t get relegated. Should we throw a party? Where would you like the statue? Under a hallucinatory afternoon sun, Tottenham finally clambered out of the fathomless hole they dug themselves; bloodied and broken, almost mummified in their own mess, but somehow, some way, alive.

Farewell to the year of non-magical thinking, of Spurs x Peppa Pig, of Encouraging Signs, of seemingly watching a man who once cost £77m relearn how to walk every weekend. Farewell to a season starring three home league wins, three managers, three points from the abyss. Michael Oliver’s final whistle triggered both the loudest wave of frenzied jubilation produced in a Premier League ground this season and a planned protest, dissenting banners lost in a forest of flailing limbs. This relieved revolt was a discordant and confusing and joyous end to an utterly baffling nine months, one which will define both Spurs and English football’s future, a failure so monstrous and all-encompassing that it will change how Premier League clubs function.

CEO Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange have written a fresh playbook for how not to run a football club, disproven the notion that some institutions are too big to fail. Executives will now assess risk in an entirely new way, operate with a newfound neuroticism, push for more data and progress. They might even consider whether the players they are signing have any semblance of chemistry or compatibility.

Spurs remain outside the world of competency looking in, a screaming void of leadership and expertise. We are just over three months past them making perhaps the worst Premier League managerial hire ever considering the circumstances, as Igor Tudor proved to be incompetent and utterly unsuitable. Three weeks before that, they made Conor Gallagher the club’s highest-paid player.

The sheer volume of the ineptitude and entropy since his departure has somewhat allowed Ange Postecoglou to write himself out of this story, but it should not be forgotten that Tottenham fell from fifth to 17th under his control, an almost unparalleled deterioration in standards and expectations. If there is a root cause of how so many of these players have collapsed in on themselves like dying stars, it began in Postecoglou’s training sessions, in the culture of superficiality and spin he fostered.

Now for the fabled reset. Just a quick one from me: what does a reset actually entail? Buying an entirely new squad? Sacking everyone and starting over? Lots of not-actually-frank meetings between the people who enacted this managed decline to decide that they are, in fact, the right people to take Tottenham forward from here? That sounds more like it. Roberto De Zerbi said both that “we don’t need to change too many players” and “we have 10/11/12 players who are good enough to stay as players and people”, simultaneously harsh and generous. But forcing players out is difficult, especially when so many are clearly deluded about their own abilities and worth. Chelsea and Manchester United have proven that bomb squads are more trouble than they are worth. How do you value Richarlison, Guglielmo Vicario, Radu Drăgușin? Given West Ham’s recent reacquaintance with reality, perhaps the only club both wealthy and badly-run enough to buy them is the one they are already at.

The money given to Gallagher and De Zerbi proved what Spurs will have to sacrifice to attract talent which materially improves them, offering caveat players – too old, too disruptive, etc – inflated wages in pursuit of ever-more infeasible potential upside. This is both the most vital and most difficult period in which to replenish the squad, without considering Lange’s seemingly unerring ability to find players who are both psychologically fragile and have hamstrings made of strawberry laces.

There are positives, however sarcastically they might read: Tottenham earned three more points than last season, with only three Premier League clubs – Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City – improving more year-on-year. Their 11 points from the final six matches was seventh in the form table, even if entirely fuelled by suffocating desperation and a visible finish line, by a head coach bothering to reinstil something resembling the basics of defending.

Beyond that, five of the eventual top eight Premier League clubs did not play European football this season, while Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Tottenham finished directly above the relegation zone, with Chelsea tenth and Newcastle 12th. Much like Chelsea, Spurs are trapped in a boom and bust cycle in part dictated by European qualification – without it, they will almost certainly improve next season. It turns out perhaps the greatest advantage a modern football club can have is playing as little football as possible.

Maybe they will scale the 12/13-point gap to seventh or eighth, maybe people will believe again, maybe De Zerbi will be the messiah, until he isn’t. But there is a limited pool of players physically and mentally suited to biweekly matches, and Spurs own none of them, and have little ability to attract any. In De Zerbi’s only season at a club in a top five league while playing in the main phase of a European competition, Brighton dropped from sixth to 11th. It feels unlikely we will be here again next season, but that is no real indicator of progress. 2027-28 will come round fast. By virtue of market forces and the immutable power of money, through Joao Palhinha’s right boot and David Sullivan’s similar incompetence five miles east of Tottenham, the world’s ninth-richest club have avoided relegation. Well, for now.

Photograph by Alex Pantling / Getty Images