Premier League: Spurs face spectre of relegation
Tottenham Hotspur manager Igor Tudor ahead of the Premier League match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London. Picture date: Sunday February 22, 2026. PA Photo. Photo credit should read: John Walton/PA Wire
The race for the Premier League title may still be in the mix but it is among two sides that were expected to be in contention. At the bottom, though, the relegation fight is just as fierce — but features a couple of clubs few imagined should be anywhere near danger.
There’s even a joke doing the rounds that the Championship could soon boast the best stadium in the UK, depending on which fallen giant goes down.
At the moment, Wolves and Burnley looked doomed for the trapdoor, leaving the one other place for the drop facing some sides near the bottom. Leeds in 15th, on 31 points, look the most secure of these sides but face a tricky game against title-hunting Man City tomorrow. Which, depending on other results, could see them quickly dragged deeper into the mire.
Nottingham Forest fans must be scratching their heads wondering how they are in this company, currently at 17th place on 27 points less than 12 month after they qualified for Europe and an outstanding seventh-place finish in the Premier League. They play on Sunday against Brighton, who are always tough to beat but it also comes hot on the heels of the exertions of last night’s game against Fenerbahçe in the Europa League and the toll those exertions may have on them.
West Ham have been in the bottom three for most of the season and looked doomed for a long part of the year. They are still in the drop zone in 18th place on 25 points, just two behind the Forest total. However, they have discovered form of late and are unbeaten in their last four matches and were unlucky not to turn a couple of draws into wins, most notably against Man United when a 96th minute goal by Benjamin Sesko saved the northerner’s blushes.
Tomorrow, they travel to Anfield to face Liverpool which may be an impossible or advantageous task depending on which Liverpool side turns up. The exciting Liverpool side that trounced Newcastle or the lame Liverpool that stumbled over the line against Forest. The Hammers have been looking good but after the Liverpool game they face tough London derbies against Fulham and Brentford, followed by big tests against title-chasing Man City and Aston Villa. A tough run for any side, but extremely hard for a club battling survival.
Most surprising of all the sides facing relegation, must be Tottenham Hotspur. Last year’s Europa League Champions are now in 16th place and just four points away from the one believed inconceivable. Years of bad calls, managerial turmoil, incredible injury blows, and plain Spurs being ‘Spursy’ has resulted in them now genuinely facing the concept of playing next seasonagainst the likes of Preston, Derby, and Watford.
Regularly included in the Premier League’s imagined ‘top six’ sides of elite top-of-the-table clubs, of late Spurs instead have been finding it hard to see beyond midtable mediocrity. While last season and now again this time out have diced with the drop. Yet everyone expects this to be some sort of aberration, and they will somehow click out of it. But with 12 games remaining, the spectre of an unthinkable relegation is now looming large.
Yet it’s not like the ‘too good to be relegated’ hasn’t happened before.
In 2023, just seven years after winning the Premier League, Leicester fell out of the Premier League and as of this season are in real danger of dropping out of the Championship too.
A similar fate happened to Blackburn in 1999. Becoming the first side to win the Premier League to be relegated, and like the Foxes are now struggling to stay in the Championship.
Big club sides like Newcastle in 2009 and West Ham in 2003 went down too but even these would pale in comparison to a Spurs relegation, a side that has spent only one season outside the top-flight since 1950, and that was back in 1977-78, has a huge domestic and international fanbase, a budget far beyond many sides in the Premier League, and as we mentioned a magnificent stadium that is not only the envy of other Premier League sides but also desired from a far and even a gem of the travelling American Football NFL season.
If Spurs — or West Ham — should fall, the Championship gains a world class venue. But for Spurs, it would be a seismic moment, one that could reignite the push by club owners to form a European Super League — a world where relegation, jeopardy, and relegations like this simply don’t exist.
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