Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United will head into the final four games of the 2025/26 Premier League season looking anxiously over their shoulders.
The two London clubs are battling to avoid joining Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley in the Championship next season.
Nottingham Forest, Leeds United and Newcastle United are not safe just yet, but Spurs or West Ham are most likely to drop into the second tier.
Relegation would potentially be catastrophic for either club, as their latest financial results don’t paint a pretty picture. Read on as we take a closer look.
Relegation could have a seismic impact on Tottenham
Several big clubs have been relegated from the Premier League, including Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Leeds United and Sunderland.
However, given their status as a member of the so-called ‘Big Six’, dropping into the second tier would be a seismic shock for Tottenham.
Their recent financial report for 2024/25 detailed a club-record £120.6 million pre-tax loss, which was the club’s sixth consecutive deficit.
Given that Tottenham won the Europa League last season, their current financial situation paints a deeply concerning picture.
In some respects, Tottenham bear some similarities to Leeds when they were relegated from the top flight at the end of the 2003/04 season.
They previously had five consecutive European campaigns and boasted a squad which was ‘too good to go down’, but finished inside the drop zone.
Leeds subsequently slipped into League 1, before regrouping and working their way back to the Premier League. However, the journey was not easy.
Tottenham were football’s second most profitable club in 2018, but have turned that £138.9m profit into a £120.6m deficit.
High annual operating costs coupled with the need to rebuild the squad could be a combination that prevents Tottenham from making a swift return to the Premier League.
They will be desperate to collect sufficient points from their remaining games against Villa (A), Leeds (H), Chelsea (A) and Everton (H) to keep themselves afloat.
West Ham are in a similarly precarious financial position
West Ham have been in this position before, having been relegated from the Premier League at the end of the 2002/03 and 2010/11 campaigns.
It took them two seasons to regain their top-flight spot on the first occasion, while they bounced back after one year the second time around.
However, their most recent financial report showed a pre-tax loss of £104m. The club has taken out a £124m loan from rights and media funding and used payday loans worth £12m to pay transfer fees.
A £40m overdraft from Barclays has also been leveraged, adding another layer of concern to their current financial situation.
Club revenue dropped from £270m to £228m, while wages increased from £161m to £176m in the new set of accounts. West Ham owe £196m to other clubs for transfer fees.
If West Ham drop into the Championship, they would need to sell all of their top players to balance the books.
Relegation would also have a knock-on effect on London council taxpayers, with the club’s contract at the London Stadium containing a clause which halves the rent if they go down.
The venue already operates at a large deficit, with Londoners subsidising its £19.5m annual running costs under a 99-year deal signed under former prime minister Boris Johnson.
With games to come against Brentford (A), Arsenal (H), Newcastle (A) and Leeds (H), the Hammers face a tough fight to avoid the embarrassment of finishing in the bottom three.
