Inside Toxic Tottenham’s horror season: Why fans think they’re ‘sleepwalking’ to relegation, the ‘financial Armageddon’ if they do drop, who would be sold, what rivals think of Fabio Paratici shambles and why Steve Perryman has been breaking up fights

Spurs are on their way to Lincoln. Sound implausible? It should not. 

Consider this stat about a ludicrous club that cruises to Champions League qualification but cannot buy a win at home: in 2025, Tottenham Hotspur lost 22 league matches. This year is a month old and they have already been defeated twice and drawn three times. Wins? None. 

They have been unable to beat Burnley, West Ham, Bournemouth, Sunderland and Brentford. January, meant to be the month of lift-off for under-pressure manager Thomas Frank and under-fire owners ENIC’s post-Daniel Levy, turned out to be a crash-landing.

Spurs are eight points clear of the drop – a sizeable gap – but their February looks like this: Manchester City (H), Manchester United (A), Newcastle United (H) and Arsenal (H). All top 10, the top two, a resurgent United and a Newcastle side that could do anything. By the time their old friends make the north London short-hop on February 22, with West Ham showing signs of life below them, it could be a very different picture.

No wonder a slow panic is spreading among the fanbase. ‘We are sleepwalking into relegation,’ claims one of many fed-up punters, who are paying some of the highest ticket prices in Europe. ‘And that will be financial Armageddon for us. This is a club set up for European football, not the Championship.’

Should they go down, those season ticket prices would no doubt fall and it is hard to imagine the likes of Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski remaining at the club. The first parachute payment totals 55 per cent of the all-important Premier League revenue (last year, following a 17th place-finish, Spurs were handed £127.8m) and savings would need to be found. The loss of Levy, a notorious negotiator, may be felt if it came to selling prized assets. 

While all that may seem far-fetched, there is significant cause for concern. As they peer nervously over their shoulder, Tottenham are, clearly, in a mess. What follows is two separate narratives over who made it and what happens next.

The first is not unique to Tottenham: a perception among seething fans of clueless owners making multiple mistakes. A view that the club is being treated as an asset, rather than an English sporting institution. A belief that a sale is around the corner and that football is playing second fiddle to finance. That the clue is in the name ENIC: English National Investment Company.

The alternative is that we are seeing the return of Levy’s chickens to roost. That the children of ex-ENIC supremo Joe Lewis, now in control, saw this cliff-fall coming ahead of the former chairman’s September ousting and are attempting to reverse the decline and change the way Spurs do business. That they will need time to do so and that pain needs to be endured before the long-desired increased budget for wages results in the arrival of better players.

The truth probably lies in the middle. But what cannot be disputed is that we’re in the era of Toxic Tottenham. An era of a broken relationship between club and fans. Indeed, Daily Mail Sport understands it has deteriorated to such an extent that at recent away matches, senior officials have been intentionally kept away from fans on their way in and out amid a heightened security operation. It really is that bad.

At a home fixture with Aston Villa in October, two fans traded punches in the stands. After the home loss to West Ham, there was the unlikely sight of Steve Perryman acting as peacemaker when an angry supporter confronted Vivienne Lewis in a corporate area, telling her to sack Frank and ‘sell-up’. 

The fan later said he paid £24,000 a season for his privilege and had every right to voice his view. It is difficult to argue. Spurs fans shell out big money for tickets, which is part of the reason why their club is the ninth-richest in the word – and part of the reason they’re not happy with the state of play. It may look spectacular, but Spurs’ stadium is not a happy place.

It was not meant to be like this. When Levy left after 24 years, many saw it as cause for celebration: the careful custodian gone and the expensive good times on the way. The wage-to-revenue ratio of 44 per cent, the biggest indicator, was about to get the long-craved boost.

Others, however, pointed to the fact that, despite Levy’s hasty exit, ENIC were still in place, as they have been since the turn of the century, and that to expect change was simple folly.

Your browser does not support iframes.

They may well feel vindicated now. Earlier this month chief executive Vinai Venkatesham wrote an open letter to fans – rarely a sign that things are going well. He stated that the ambition was to ‘compete regularly in the Champions League and for major trophies’. The former Arsenal exec spoke of a reset and hinted at a bigger spend on wages. 

‘We are fully focused on strengthening the squad in January where the right opportunities exist,’ he said, adding the caveat: ‘while recognising that the most significant player trading typically comes in summer windows’. So far Spurs have spent around £48million on Conor Gallagher and 19-year-old Brazilian left back Souza. They remain keen on adding Andy Robertson from Liverpool but this has hardly been the strengthening many crave. It has not gone unnoticed that around £35m of that outlay has been offset by the sale of Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace. A net spend of £13m has, unsurprisingly, not quietened the noise.

Harry Kane and Son Heung-min have not been replaced. Indeed, one thing that grates is the lack of greats. Since the 1980s Spurs have always had a sprinkling of stardust. Hoddle, Waddle, Lineker, Klinsmann, Sheringham, Ginola, Bale, Kane, Son… 

‘Van de Ven is probably the best we’ve got now,’ the fan adds. ‘A fast centre-half. Great. We’re the ninth-richest club in the world and we don’t act like it. We have similar revenues to Arsenal and a wage bill around £100m less. That’s the equivalent of four-world class players.’

A recent graph compiled by podcastThe Price of Football’s Kieran Maguire showed that since the start of the Premier League in 1992, clubs had lost a total of £4.99billion. At the top sat Chelsea, with losses of £1.257bn. Spurs are at the bottom with a £183.2m profit.

Some of the more downbeat fans think they are witnessing a form of asset-stripping, a cutting of costs to make the club even more attractive to potential buyers.

Fuel was added to those flames earlier this week when chief revenue officer Ryan Norys spoke to the Unofficial Partner podcast. ‘We’re starting to look at not just a football venue but a global entertainment destination that delivers audiences across a diverse level of demographics,’ he said of the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. The comment was quickly picked up on by a Spurs fan account on social media which, perhaps harshly, claimed it was proof that: ‘We’re no longer a football stadium.’ Such is the depth of feeling.

Inside that stadium, one of the major concerns is that there are not enough goals in the team to win the points needed to avoid the unthinkable. The inconsistent Richarlison is top scorer with seven. He’s followed by defenders Van de Ven and Romero on four. A returning Dominic Solanke will be welcome.

Your browser does not support iframes.

The lack of spend and unwillingness to sack Frank has led some to believe the club is in a state of paralysis. That they are not backing or sacking and that this is indicative of a power vacuum, post-Levy, and a lack of accountable leadership. At least when Levy was there they had someone to blame. That said, the recruitment of sporting director Johan Lange also comes in for heavy criticism, as does the damning debacle of Fabio Paratici.

The Italian, a strong personality who splits opinion according to those who have worked with him, was managing director of football from 2021 to 2023 before being banned by the Italian FA for alleged financial malpractice during his time at Juventus. Following his ban, eyebrows were raised when he returned as co-sporting director alongside Lange. This was post-Levy and a decision made very much under the current leadership. Three-and-a-half months later it was announced he was off again, returning to Italy at the end of January to take up a role with Fiorentina.

It has not gone unnoticed at Premier League rivals. ‘When you’re talking about a reset and trying to convince people that you know what you are doing, to then appoint a sporting director and then lose him months later is not a great look,’ says one exec at a rival outfit.

Those close to ENIC however reject huge swathes of the above. They point out that the group has not taken a penny out. Indeed, in October it injected £100m. There is, privately, an acknowledgement that too much of a backseat was taken during Levy’s reign and that the club does need to increase the wage-to-revenue ratio dramatically. The arrival of Gallagher, they would say, points towards that desire. Should a move for soon-to-be 32 Robertson materialise, then it would represent the first signing of a player over 30 since 2017. This is an approach at odds with Levy’s Spurs.

There is also a rejection that there was no plan for life post-Levy. However, there is clear evidence via the arrival of Venkatesham last April that this was the case. Some believe the chief exec attracts unfair criticism based purely on his previous employer and that he is working ferociously hard to transform Tottenham’s off-the-field operation and gear it towards success.

The state of paralysis referred to earlier also strikes a nerve. While Frank is under pressure, there is a privately-held view that the lack of quality on the pitch, rather than in the dugout, is the problem. When it comes to transfer activity, or a lack thereof, the manager takes some credit because – despite his own predicament – he has been adamant that he will not accept short-term fixes and will only sign off transfers that improve the club in the long term, even if he is not to benefit from them.

Moves were explored for Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi in this window but, while willing to spend, Spurs could not compete with City. Fourteenth is not a good selling point and some may say that such attempts were a waste of time.

There is also a belief that the players are clearly still playing for the manager, and that the performances in Europe underline this. While few will shed tears, the club have also had horrendous luck with injuries. 

Those Daily Mail Sport spoke to would not be drawn on details, but should the worst come to the worst there are thought to be clauses in contracts which would lower wages in the event of relegation, but the prospect is not being considered.

There is also a strong rejection that the club is for sale. The point here being that the reshaping of football operations, willingness to increase wages and ongoing work off the field would not be taking place if that were the case. ‘This is going to take some time to reverse,’ explains one source. ‘But these are not the actions of people who want to sell the club.’

None of this will be music to the ears of fed-up fans who are sick of waiting. But it is what it is. The view from within, at least, is that the summer window will see big changes and big wages – if they stay up.

Twenty-eight points, the number already secured, would have been enough to keep them up last season. With West Ham on 20 and with 15 to play that is unlikely to be the case this time around.

Tottenham are a club with a huge past. They now face an era-defining future.