A Miserable Season: Sportsbooks Roll on Spurs to Go Down

For Tottenham Hotspur fans, social media hasn’t been a fun place over recent weeks. There has been an element of, “things can’t get any worse,” before, of course, they do get worse. The debacle in the Champions League defeat against Atletico Madrid, which could actually cost Igor Tudor his job, means that the club has some very big decisions to make between now and the end of the season. 

Yet, the most pressing need for Spurs is to stay in the Premier League. It was unthinkable to even consider this a possibility a few months ago, but lurching to calamity after calamity has meant it is now something that could truly happen. We’ve noted that sportsbooks have also moved the dial. The latest relegation odds found at https://sportsbook.draftkings.com/, for instance, have Spurs as 3rd favorites to go down. It's incredible to see how far the team has fallen in a few months. A reminder that they have not won a league game in 2026. 

Questions around the manager 

So, what happens next? Well, there is talk of switching out head coach Igor Tudor, ironic given that he was brought in as a ‘firefighter,’ and there is even talk of Harry Redknapp coming back to save the day. While age shouldn’t really be a barrier to football management, it’s worth remembering that Redknapp is 79, and he last managed professionally in 2017, and that was only for a two-month stint. It doesn’t feel ideal. 

The good news is that Spurs do have some winnable fixtures in the run-in. April, in particular, which sees Spurs play games against Sunderland, Brighton and Wolves, might yield enough points to move them into a safe spot before a tough end to the campaign (Chelsea, Everton, Aston Villa, Leeds), yet the issue for Tottenham is not who they are playing, but how they are playing. 

And that seems to be the rub: Tottenham’s players look discombobulated, completely bereft of a plan or passion. Injuries and suspensions have not helped, but there must be a sense of rallying around the cause for the team to dig itself out of this hole. 

Some bright spots to build on

If we can point to some optimistic points, it is that there have been periods within games where the Tottenham players have looked to be giving it a go. The North London Derby defeat to Arsenal, for example, saw Tottenham make a fist of things for a bit, and the 5-2 defeat in the Champions League at the hands of Atletico Madrid probably flattered the Spaniards a little bit after they capitalized on Spurs’ implosion in 17 crazy minutes that saw Tudor hook the young goalkeeper, Anotnin Kinsky. 

That tells us that the talent is there, and we know by looking at Spurs’ squad that it is arguably deeper than the rest of the relegation battlers. But this is a worrying moment – and an unthinkable one for a so-called Big 6 team. The bookmakers have moved to put them into realistic relegation candidates, and the most worrying thing about Spurs’ form is that it has been so bad that nobody will be surprised if they do go down.