This is happening. We are well beyond the \u2018wouldn\u2019t it be funny if\u2026\u2019 stage. Spurs are going down.<\/p>\n
They are currently without question the worst team in the Premier League<\/strong><\/a> and they are running out of time and games to save themselves. The new-manager bounce they might have hoped for from Igor Tudor is already a lost cause after two horrific defeats.<\/p>\n Do not be fooled by the 2-1 scoreline at Fulham. This was not a close football match. Trawling through the archives of Tottenham horror shows, the closest thing this resembled was the infamous humiliation at Newcastle under Tudor lookalike Cristian Stellini<\/strong><\/a>. We noted after that game that things could get worse still for Spurs, something that now applies in spades with even wider ramifications.<\/p>\n Fulham didn\u2019t get the goals Newcastle did on that occasion, but they had the same vaguely puzzled look of a team that couldn\u2019t quite believe how easily and entirely they were dominating a game of football against a team theoretically of a similar standard from within the same league.<\/p>\n While for Spurs, there were \u2013 as there were three years ago at St James\u2019 Park \u2013 just blank looks of confusion and despair. Not one player in the first half appeared to have a clear idea of what he was supposed to be doing, and without exception whatever they were doing was just awful.<\/p>\n Spurs looked, as we\u2019ve grown accustomed to in recent months, all at sea in defence. They barely looked like scoring. And yet somehow the worst part of the performance lay at neither end of the pitch but in the near total absence of anything at all where a midfield was supposed to be.<\/p>\n This was abject stuff. The only saving grace for Spurs is that all the teams around them also lost this weekend. They will not always be so lucky.<\/p>\n The apparent closeness of the scoreline might leave some still doubting the scale of the trouble Spurs are in, but nobody who watched this game can surely think this is a team that can, will or should survive. They are still without a Premier League win in 2026<\/strong><\/a>, and putting that right looks further away than ever.<\/p>\n So far, the most tangible impact from Igor Tudor\u2019s arrival appears to have been to nullify Spurs\u2019 threat from set-pieces, which under the unwatchable anti-football of Thomas Frank was at least the one thing they were notably good at.<\/p>\n This was the eighth Premier League game in succession in which Spurs have conceded two goals. It could and should have been a great many more with so many clear chances spurned and Guglielmo Vicario pulling off one particularly spectacular save to deny Emile Smith Rowe.<\/p>\n But more often than not, two is proving plenty because Spurs\u2019 attacking play is just deeply forlorn and entirely pedestrian.<\/p>\n The one brief exception to that tale here brought them, in theory, back into this contest. Mathys Tel, who was to his credit momentarily lively after being introduced as a substitute before being dragged down to the rest of the team\u2019s level, did nicely to set makeshift left-back Archie Gray away down the left side of the penalty area, and he found the ideal cross for Richarlison to nod home.<\/p>\n A goal, of course, that simultaneously raised Spurs hopes while also confirming defeat because Richarlison goals are cursed things. No good can ever come of them.<\/p>\n In accordance with the prophecy, he picked up his customary post-goal booking here for performatively wrestling with Calvin Bassey to get the ball back to the centre-circle.<\/p>\n Always a good one, this: an action that has never in football history had any tangible impact on the speed with which a game restarts and is even more dunderheaded in the multiball era. If you must make a show of taking a ball to the centre-circle to tell everyone you mean business, just go and grab another one.<\/p>\n At least this Richarlison goal counted. One of the cruellest ironies for the Brazilian is that while all his post-goal yellow cards count, so many of his goals are subsequently ruled out. Seems terribly unfair, really.<\/p>\n Spurs wanted Fulham\u2019s early opener ruled out, too. And there will be controversy about it, even if it should not and cannot mask the general awfulness of their performance.<\/p>\n