Last week Tottenham Hotspur seemed to secure its position as football's favourite punchline. The increasingly real possibility of relegation is no laughing matter for the club now.
While the rest of the football community giggles at our expense, it feels like some of our players are already admitting defeat.
It has been a miserable season for Spurs fans, and I completely empathise with the thousands who left the stadium early during our defeat to Crystal Palace.
I stayed until the bitter end, but not to claim any moral high ground. So numbed was I by the total capitulation I had witnessed from our team, that I simply couldn't muster the energy to move.
It is one thing for fans to make an early exit, but quite another for players to do so – and yet this is how it feels some of our team is behaving at the moment, particularly the more experienced individuals who should be leading, not leaving.
Where is the fight? Where is the desire? Where is the humility?
We all know the rot at Tottenham is much deeper than the players on the pitch, and that the signs of decay have been visible for years.
However, all that matters now is the next game. And the next one. And so on until we secure our Premier League survival.
The players on the pitch must win those games, or at the very least, they must try.
Even if some of the squad has mentally checked out – unbothered by the badge us fans love so dearly, and instead dreaming about their next club – they should still be playing for their own professional integrity.
If it does not come naturally, then the head coach must instill this fight into their players.
Which brings us to Igor Tudor, who is somehow still in charge, discussing players who can and can't stay on his boat.
At this point, the jokes write themselves.
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