Tottenham Hotspur will be hoping the 2025/26 season marked the point at which the club finally hit rock bottom after a run of difficult years.
The club only confirmed their Premier League survival on the final day of last season, stumbling to a second straight 17th-place finish. Unlike the previous campaign, however, they did not have a trophy success to soften the blow this time, after their 2025 Europa League triumph.
The causes behind Spurs’ recent problems have been widely discussed, with changes in the managerial dugout and questionable recruitment standing out as two of the biggest issues the club have had to deal with in recent years.
Former Spurs striker Peter Crouch has identified last season’s appointment of Igor Tudor as an especially bad call, and he also feels his former club require a major rebuild in order to properly support new head coach Roberto De Zerbi.
“Roberto De Zerbi has been amazing at Spurs,” Crouch told FourFourTwo. “The Igor Tudor reign was disastrous.
“No-one saw that appointment coming and it didn’t ever start making any more sense.”
Crouch feels that for a club with Tottenham’s level of ambition, that decision reflected a broader issue which has been affecting the club for quite some time.
“There’s been serious mismanagement for a while now,” he continued, while also saying Tottenham’s recruitment work has not been good enough.
“They haven’t bought well enough,” Crouch added, although he backed the club’s recent summer spending drive, which has seen Tottenham spend more than £300million heading into the closing days of the transfer window.
That outlay has brought in players such as Savio, Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes and, despite a 3-0 defeat to Brentford on the opening weekend, Crouch insists the time has now come for the club to move forward again.
“A club of that size can’t be trying to stay up by a couple of points,” he said, in a remark that also underlines the scale of the task facing De Zerbi and his team this season.
“I hope to see Spurs back to their best this season,” Crouch concluded.
