Premier League:  Spurs have nine games to save their skin

Tuesday night was meant to be a welcome distraction from Tottenham’s horrible Premier League crisis. Instead, a humiliating 5-2 defeat to Atletico Madrid at the Civitas Metropolitano only deepened the gloom. As the players trudged off, they must have been wondering if all hope had now abandoned them.

Prior to the Atletico game, some of us mused on the prospect of Tottenham Hotspur somehow finding a way to win the Champions League title and then having to defend their crown from the Championship next season. Meeting Preston North End in Deepdale on the Saturday after playing Real Madrid in the Bernabeu on the Wednesday had a certain schadenfreude attractiveness about it.

But even that daydream is gone now, as Spurs return to the harsh reality of a relegation fight — nine games to save their season, starting with a daunting trip to Anfield tomorrow and a Liverpool side, who themselves will looking to bounce back from their own Champions League set-back.

Bad numbers

The numbers are grim for Spurs fans. Tuesday’s defeat was their sixth defeat in a row. An unwanted club record. And to make it look worse, they shipped 18 goals in those six defeats, including four in their home game against the hated neighbours Arsenal. That Spurs have not won a single Premier League game this year is the biggest indictment of a side one point above the relegation zone.

Spurs are that one point ahead of the West Ham and Forest in 16th. But both these sides are performing better at the moment than Spurs With nine Premier League matches remaining in the season there are some crucial six-pointer clashes between the relegation contenders coming up, but none so crucial than Spurs against Forest on March 22. A match that could seal the fate of whoever loses.

Hope

In Spurs favour, during the week, the Opta supercomputer that tries to predict the final look of the table, has decided that the north London outfit will miss the cut, just, giving them a 16.10% chance of going down, while Forest are a 26.88% chance of getting cut with West Ham on a 49.53% chance of making the drop.

With the extra point on the board, and an arguably easier run-in than their opponents, the prediction seems valid enough. But you wonder does it take in to account the stomach the Spurs players and fans have for the fight ahead.

West Ham and Forest players and fans are veterans of relegation battles. They know what it takes to get out of the mire. They’ve done it all before. The fans will roar on their players all the way till it mathematically impossible to survive.

The fight

The same can’t be said for Spurs. After their last 3-1 league defeat, at home to Palace, the players looked beat. Their heads were down and they looked like they didn’t want to be there. As for the fans they weren’t there. They had left long before the final whistle, bar a few that remained in a stunned silence or stayed to vent their frustration at the Spurs players and management.

Spurs fans are embarrassed to be in this position. They are a top six club now struggling in the mud and shame of a relegation battle. The fans aren’t ready to egg them on, come what may, they’d prefer to egg them with the rotten poultry product instead.

The Opta prediction also came out before the morale-sapping defeat in Madrid and the farcical use and early substitution of their unfortunate young goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky in the game.

The fallout of that decision and the subsequent match result now sees calls for interim boss Igor Tudor to be fired, just a month after taking charge from Thomas Frank. It may seem ridiculous to make such a call, but then again, it seems like anything would be better than the current status quo.

It is beyond belief that the team of Blanchflower, Hoddle, Ardiles, and Gascoigne are now in such a predicament. Even should they manage to survive the drop the damage to them reputationally, economically, and historically will take years to recover from.