Tottenham are without a win in 15 Premier League games, and yet Roberto De Zerbi believes they can turn it around and avoid relegation. Is an escape at all realistic?
“We have another five games. It’s tough, every one of us knows it’s a tough moment, it’s a difficult situation, but we have another five games, 15 points, and this team is able to win five games in a row.”
That was Roberto De Zerbi’s assessment after Tottenham battled bravely and performed well but ultimately conceded a gut-wrenching late equaliser against Brighton on Saturday evening.
For the first time in a long while, Spurs have some reason for hope. It was the best they’d played all season. They kept the ball well, attacked cohesively, pressed aggressively, and created more than enough chances to win. They had a 2-1 lead heading into the fifth minute of second-half stoppage time, but in the end could not hold on. A first league win of 2026 continues to elude them.
But the performance, if not the result, convinced the manager jetted in to save them that they can turn this dire situation around. Five games; five wins. There’s a decent chance that De Zerbi doesn’t actually believe his team can win all of them, but for now, that’s the message. It is, however unlikely, the aim.
After West Ham’s 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace on Monday night, the gap to safety is now two points. It’s not insurmountable, but Spurs getting out of this situation will be a real challenge. Not least for a team that have won none of their last 15 Premier League games. It is their longest ever winless streak in the competition.
De Zerbi says his team can do it. He says they can win all five of their remaining games. It would be quite the turnaround if they were to pull it off.
The manager saw enough in the draw with Brighton to convince him that Spurs can get out of this mess. In just two and a half weeks with the players, he has had a significant impact on the team and Spurs were actually unfortunate not to win. It was the first time since the 2-2 draw at Burnley on 24 January, 11 Premier League games ago, that Tottenham have generated more expected goals than their opponents.
They only ‘won’ that particular battle by a rather slender margin of 0.27 xG. It was hardly one-way traffic. Chinks in their armour remain and Brighton exploited them. The Tottenham players put everything into this performance and they were as good as they have been in a long while, and yet it still wasn’t enough to win.
But there is now some hope there. And after West Ham were unable to take further advantage of more dropped Spurs points, De Zerbi and his team can cling to the possibility of a sharp turnaround in their form and an unlikely escape act.
Winning all five games will almost certainly prove beyond them. Having won seven of 33 games this season, five wins from five with the pressure on would surely be impossible. No team has ever been in the relegation zone with five matches of a Premier League season to play and won all of their last five games. The Opta supercomputer agrees, too: in 10,000 simulations of the rest of the season, Spurs won all of their remaining games just 23 times (0.23%).
However, they almost certainly won’t need to win all five. It has been 23 years since the team in 18th place has won more than 39 points, and although that doesn’t necessarily mean the same will happen again this season, it does show how rare it is for 40 points to actually be needed to survive.
Spurs currently have 31 points. Three wins would take them to 40. There’s a good chance that would be enough, and that’s a far more realistic target. There are 18 examples of teams winning at least three of their last five games of a Premier League season after being in the relegation zone with five games left. There are five instances of a team winning four games.
Not all of those 18 teams survived, but plenty of them did. Some of them, such as West Brom in 2017-18 and Fulham in 2018-19, who each won three of their last five games, had already been relegated and were playing without any pressure.
Plenty of others, however, won their way out of trouble and stayed up after a late and unlikely run of form. In 2007-08, for example, Fulham and Bolton were both in the relegation zone, six and four points adrift of safety, respectively, with five games to play. Fulham won four of their last five while Bolton won three and drew the other two of theirs. Both survived.
In 2013-14, Sunderland won four of their last five having been bottom after 33 games and finished five points clear of safety.
It is the most recent example, however, that might just be the most relevant to Tottenham, and therefore provide the most reason for optimism.
In 2016-17, Swansea City were 18th after 33 games, two points adrift of safety and on a terrible run of form, having taken just one point from their previous six matches. They faced games against the teams who were, at the time, in fifth, seventh, eighth, 11th and 20th in the Premier League table. They won four and drew one of those matches to finish well clear of the drop zone.
This season, Tottenham are 18th after 33 games, two points adrift of safety and on a terrible run of form. They face the teams in fourth, sixth, 10th, 15th and 20th in their last five games – very similar to the teams Swansea faced. Winning four – or even three – of them might feel extremely unlikely right now, but Swansea’s late flourish nine years ago could give them some hope.
The problem for Tottenham is that their fate isn’t in their own hands, and they are relying on other teams slipping up. West Ham and Nottingham Forest are both in decent form, with one and zero losses, respectively, in their last five matches, while Leeds have already played their way out of trouble. Spurs do at least have an easier set of remaining fixtures than West Ham or Forest.
Tottenham need a lot of things to start going their way. They need about as big a U-turn in their form as it is possible to have. They need their relegation rivals to stop winning. They need to be closer to perfect than they were against Brighton on Saturday, and that means scoring chances like the one Xavi Simons missed when he hit the post, and not making any mistakes at the back. They need luck on their side, too.
It’s not looking good at all, but with a positive display at the weekend, Spurs showed that this relegation battle is not over. Escape is looking increasingly and worryingly unlikely, but it is not yet impossible.
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