Roberto De Zerbi walked into arguably the toughest job in the Premier League this April — Tottenham Hotspur, 18th in the table, 15 games without a win, and 57% likely to be playing Championship football next season. And yet, remarkably, he still believes they can do it.
"We can win the last five games," De Zerbi said after a painful 2-2 draw with his former club Brighton left Spurs still inside the bottom three. "I know what is going to happen. We will stay up."
Whether that confidence is genuine or a psychological play, it's exactly what a dressing room in freefall needed to hear. The stats, however, paint a grimmer picture.
A winless run that belongs in the history books
Tottenham haven't won a Premier League game in 15 attempts — a run that only the doomed 2007-08 Derby County and 2002-03 Sunderland sides exceeded in the competition's history. Both of those teams were relegated. Spurs have collected just six draws and nine defeats across that stretch. That's not a blip. That's a collapse.
They're sitting on 31 points from 33 games, and only five fixtures remain. To guarantee survival without other results going their way, they likely need at least 10-12 more points. Winning all five would give them 46 — which would typically be more than enough to stay up, but the battle below is an unusual one this season.
The relegation battle in numbers
Right now, Opta gives Tottenham a 57.17% probability of relegation. West Ham are next in the danger zone at 38.03%, while Nottingham Forest — who have pulled themselves well clear — sit at just 4.33%. Burnley and Wolves are already confirmed down, meaning only one more club will join them from the Championship trapdoor.
That one spot is essentially a straight fight between Spurs and West Ham. Leeds are eight points clear of the drop zone with five games left and are almost mathematically safe. Forest look set to survive. It's Tottenham versus the Hammers now, and the pressure is enormous.
De Zerbi's arrival — too late, but not without hope
De Zerbi replaced Ange Postecoglou's successor Tudor in early April, with Tudor lasting just 44 days before being dismissed. The Italian tactician, who transformed Brighton into one of the most attractive sides in England before a spell in France, signed a five-year deal at Spurs — a signal that the club is already thinking beyond just survival.
His first game ended 2-2 against Brighton, a match Spurs led twice. That they couldn't hold on was frustrating. That they scored twice at all was at least a sign of life from a squad that looked completely broken just weeks earlier. De Zerbi says he can already see the quality in the group. The problem is there's very little time left to show it.
The fixtures — and where it could all go wrong
West Ham's remaining schedule is no easier than Spurs', which at least gives Tottenham a fighting chance. De Zerbi has already warned the Hammers: "I know what's going to happen in this relegation battle." Confident words. Probably intentionally designed to rattle the team sitting directly above them.
Son Heung-min, the club captain and still one of their most dangerous players on his day, is expected to lead the charge. The squad has more than enough quality to get results — on paper. But form, momentum, and the mental weight of a historic winless run are forces that paper quality can't always overcome.
The bottom line
Tottenham's situation is genuinely precarious. A 57% relegation probability isn't a death sentence, but it's serious. De Zerbi is right that winning all five is theoretically possible. He's also right that West Ham could slip up. But Spurs need to start delivering in matches, not just in press conferences.
Five games. That's all they have. The story of one of English football's biggest clubs spending next season at Huddersfield and Preston rather than Old Trafford and the Emirates is still very much being written — and the ending is far from decided.
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