As you may have noticed, Arsenal’s record since the last game in November has been one that has caused a few worry lines to appear on some people’s faces, and also triggered the “Arsenal in decline” response from many journalists, who see Arsenal being overtaken by the likes of Manchester City, Aston Villa and even quite possibly Chelsea.
They would undoubtedly like to add Tottenham to that list of clubs, but that turns out to be rather difficult given their recent run of form with two victories in the last eight games, plus two draws and four defeats. Still, they have beaten Brentford and Slavia Praha this month before losing to Forest, who are currently 16th in the league.
And that result got me thinking. I mean, we all remember that Tottenham had a bit of a rough time of it last season, and were emotionally rescued (if not rescued in any other way) by winning the Europa League. However, the shine was taken off that affair to some degree by the fact that they ended up in 17th place in the league, just one place above relegation.
So I got to wondering how Tottenham are doing this season in comparison with last season – and I wondered about that because the media are being particularly quiet on this matter, and I know from experience that where journalists are quiet it is because things are not going the way they like, so they try to pretend they haven’t noticed.
To look at this a little further, I took the league table today and compared it, in terms of Tottenham’s position, with the league table one year ago after 16 games. And this is what I found…
11
Tottenham Hotspur 2025
16
6
4
6
25
21
4
22
10
Tottenham Hotspur 2024
16
7
2
7
36
19
17
23
Now if you are a regular reader of this site, then first thank you, and second, you might recall that we have often ventured into the subject of “dips” – the concept of a club doing very well for quite a while, but then suddenly having not just one defeat but a whole series of defeats and draws, which drops them right down the league.
In fact, our argument is that managers not only have to engineer wins, but they also have to find a way to change the mindset of players when they have a defeat, and persuade them that they really can win the next game.
Tottenham are in fact in the classic dip, having fallen to 17th in the league table for the last six games.
Premier League Form (Last 6)
Team
P
W
D
L
F
A
GD
Pts
1
Aston Villa
6
6
0
0
16
7
+9
18
2
Man City
6
5
0
1
18
8
+10
15
3
Nottingham Forest
6
4
0
2
10
6
+4
12
4
Everton
6
4
0
2
8
6
+2
12
**5**
**Arsenal**
**6**
**3**
**2**
**1**
**12**
**7**
**+5**
**11**
**17**
**Tottenham**
**6**
**1**
**2**
**3**
**8**
**13**
**\-5**
**5**
18
Bournemouth
6
0
3
3
8
14
\-6
3
19
Burnley
6
0
0
6
6
14
\-8
0
20
Wolverhampton
6
0
0
6
2
13
\-11
0
And I do find this slightly interesting in that this seems to be exactly where Tottenham finished in the league last season. Now of course, we mustn’t get too carried away with this because although Tottenham did indeed come just one place above the relegation positions, they missed relegation by 13 points last campaign, and that is a fair-sized gap.
But then, having won the Europa League amidst much cheering and waving of flags, they sacked their manager and brought in the new man
Now the problem seems to be that with managers from Villa-Boas onwards, they picked up men who could deliver 50% wins or more in their competitive games. From then up to Conte there were, I think, seven managers all delivering a run of results that included winning at least half of the competitive matches.
But there is this Tottenham thing of going on, changing managers and doing it again and again, not for any good reason but because it is the Tottenham thing – and besides, they were always winning 50% of their games.
And so they went on until they had a couple of acting head coaches (Stellini and Mason.) who took that average way, way down. Then by the time first Postecoglou and then Frank turned up, the whole notion of winning half your matches was lost. Last time I looked Poste was on 46% wins and Frank on 40%.
Of course, it is great fun for us that Tottenham do keep changing managers without ever realising that changing managers is not the way to improve a club. Mind you, nor is having an owner who was found guilty of insider trading. However, we must be clear here. Joe Lewis, who used to own the club, is apparently getting a formal pardon from Donald Trump, although I don’t think he gets the £4m fine back.
I should also say Lewis also transferred ownership of the club to the Lewis Family Trust in 2022, But anyway, it is always interesting to see how things go on where different values hold sway.