Are Tottenham set for all-time shock relegation? Plus: Messi, Inter Miami meet Trump

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Hello! Tottenham Hotspur fans: break glass and pull the emergency handle. Your team are in meltdown territory.

Coming up:

😬 Woeful Spurs in crisis

🏠 Messi at the White House

🤖 AI’s World Cup takeover

♻️ EFL promotion revamp

Fright night: Will Spurs loss lead to most stunning relegation in EPL history?

The reaction to our coverage of Arsenal yesterday got me thinking about the notion of winning with style. Cut it any way you like, but those who complain about teams not winning with style are usually those who aren’t winning enough. For a club looking down from the top of the league, it’s all white noise.

Across north London at Tottenham Hotspur, they’re way beyond worrying about the nature of their victories. Winning some games any which way would be a good start, and if they don’t rediscover the knack for doing so soon, we’ll be looking at arguably the most indefensible relegation in the history of the Premier League.

I’d call the prospect unbelievable, but it isn’t, because Spurs have been circling the drain for longer than is healthy. Forget them lifting the Europa League trophy last season (that was like their fortnightly trip to the rehab centre). They’re in a rut of appointing coaches who don’t stick, of signing players who can’t cut it, and of taking incremental steps backwards, to the level where they’ve pushed their luck too far.

They dithered and let last summer’s arrival Thomas Frank take a thousand cuts before sacking him last month. They made an out-there move by choosing Igor Tudor as their interim saviour for the games they have left. Tudor, in fairness, had a track record of making mid-season improvements at teams he took charge of in Italy, but he was not what you’d call a classic Premier League firefighter.

And so it’s proving. Defeat to Crystal Palace last night was his third in three games. The contest itself was a classic of the genre of teams on the road to relegation: an opening goal for Tottenham apparently settling them down, only for the ‘Oh boy, here we go again’ cycle to kick in. Micky van de Ven was sent off, Palace scored three times in rapid succession — including the second, above, after Spurs gifted them the ball — and it was goodnight Vienna.

I saw relegation first-hand when covering Leeds United a few years back, and this is what it smells like. Flashes of promise are a mirage. The lack of punch resistance is scarily real. Spurs are a point above the league’s bottom three and all Tudor could offer post-match last night was blind hope. “I believe more after this game than I believed before,” he said. “I saw something.” I’m pleased he did.

Downward spiral

On the basis of finances alone, Spurs should be nowhere near the danger zone. Their turnover this season will be in the region of £600million ($801.3m) — for context, Leeds’ revenue of £190m in 2023 is the highest of any relegated Premier League side to date — and they have the finest stadium in England, bar none. A 17th-placed finish last May should have been a call to action.

But Tottenham have routinely been criticised for running a budget that limits their competitive levels. They look now like an entity who took their eye off the ball, badly. The 15 home league games so far have brought them 10 points, which is utterly dire, and they lost their fanbase a while ago.

Spurs might get out of the mire yet, but yesterday’s 3-1 home loss had all the hallmarks of impending doom: thousand-yard stares across the ground, seats emptying, intermittent booing, the match ending to the mocking sound of opposition ‘Olés’ and, when the TV cameras panned to them, numerous Tottenham supporters laughing bleakly because if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.

One thing I remember about Leeds going down three years ago was the periods of beaten silence when all seemed lost. It must have been like that on the deck of the Titanic at 2am with the lifeboats gone.

Nothing in life is too big to fail, and no Premier League side should be arrogant in thinking relegation is beneath them. But Spurs would be a victim like no other — downed by hubris and their delusions of grandeur.

White House, pink ball: Messi and Inter Miami follow Ronaldo to meet Trump

Lionel Messi hands U.S. President Donald Trump a signed pink ball (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

For many years, an invitation to the White House was something sports teams accepted without thinking twice. These days, athletes are less and less sure about how closely they wish to associate themselves with anything resembling a political endorsement.

Juventus spent an uncomfortable afternoon in the Oval Office with U.S. President Donald Trump before the Club World Cup last summer. Cristiano Ronaldo visited the White House last November, although he looked happier in those surroundings. Yesterday, it was the turn of Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami: invited to Washington, D.C. to mark their inaugural MLS title last season.

The question beforehand was whether Messi would turn up. The Argentina captain prefers to stay at arm’s length from politics, and he’d skipped an opportunity to meet Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, in 2025. But when Trump entered the room, he had Messi to his left and the Florida club’s co-owner Jorge Mas to his right (there was, notably, no sign of fellow co-owner David Beckham).

Trump kicked off proceedings by talking about Iran. He moved on to the subject of Cuba’s volatile history before getting to the point of Miami’s appearance, asking Messi if he was better than Pele and accepting a stack of gifts, including a sparkling pink ball. It was surreal, it was random, and if you want the full picture, Paul Tenorio had the joy of following the White House audience from start to finish. Lucky boy.

News round-up

• The crisis in the Middle East forced the postponement of a Saudi Premier League match yesterday, despite the SPL saying its fixture list would continue as planned. Elsewhere, Spain are worried about a Women’s World Cup qualifier, which is due to take place in Turkey.
• The 2026 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations has been rescheduled for July and August, just two weeks before it was supposed to kick off. The Confederation of African Football says this is due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
• A big development in England’s second-tier Championship: from next season, the number of promotion play-off places is increasing to six from the traditional four. That’s a real game-changer.
• Edu as Nottingham Forest’s global head of football has never felt like the right fit. His position is now in major doubt and due to be reviewed at the end of the season, which probably means he’ll be off.
• Sean Dyche, one of three head coaches sacked by Forest this season, took a pop at the role of “keyboard warriors” in his dismissal. “On factual data and analysis, I can’t understand the decisions that were made,” he says in a punchy podcast interview.
• And to stick with the Forest theme, one of the other two coaches given the heave-ho since the games began in August — Nuno Espirito Santo — is in an acrimonious legal dispute with the club. Never dull.

World Cup tech: Body scans, ref cams and football AI – what you’ll see at the tournament

It goes without saying that the 2026 World Cup will be the most technologically advanced to date. The robots are taking over and I’ll watch with interest to see if they’re any good at keeping the peace.

A recent planning meeting in Atlanta laid out the key changes FIFA intends to implement. Among them is software that will individually scan the body shape of every single player at the tournament, allowing (in theory) for more reliable offside decisions. At present, avatars used by VAR are generic, and therefore marginally less accurate.

FIFA has also announced that ref cams will be worn by on-field officials during all 104 matches. Some of the ref-cam footage that came out of the Club World Cup last summer was pretty cool. Far less sexy, if entirely on trend, is the governing body’s plan to ask an AI system, Football AI Pro, to provide game-by-game analysis of team and player performances. Humans beware.

Felipe Cardenas cut through the headlines to establish how the tech will function in practice, and whether it is likely to make a positive difference. Imagine a World Cup with no refereeing controversy. What would we all fight about then?

Catch a match

(Selected games, times ET/UK)

Friday FA Cup fifth round: Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Liverpool, 3pm/8pm — ESPN/BBC One, TNT Sports; La Liga: Celta Vigo vs Real Madrid, 3pm/8pm — ESPN, Fubo/Premier Sports; Bundesliga: Bayern Munich vs Borussia Monchengladbach, 2.30pm/7.30pm — ESPN/BBC.

Saturday FA Cup fifth round: Mansfield Town vs Arsenal, 7.15am/12.15pm — ESPN, Fubo/TNT Sports; Wrexham vs Chelsea, 12.45pm/5.45pm — ESPN/BBC One, TNT Sports; Newcastle United vs Manchester City, 3pm/8pm — ESPN/TNT Sports; SheBelieves Cup: United States vs Colombia, 3.30pm/8.30pm — TNT, Peacock Premium (U.S. only); La Liga: Athletic Club vs Barcelona, 3pm/8pm — ESPN, Fubo/Disney+; MLS: DC United vs Inter Miami, 3.30pm/9.30pm; LAFC vs FC Dallas, 10.30pm/3.30am — Apple TV in both regions.

Sunday FA Cup fifth round: Leeds United vs Norwich City, 12.30pm/4.30pm — ESPN/TNT Sports; Scottish Cup quarter-final: Rangers vs Celtic, 9am/1pm — ESPN/Premier Sports; Serie A: Milan vs Inter, 3.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+, DAZN/TNT Sports, DAZN; MLS: New York Red Bulls vs CF Montreal, 4.30pm/8.30pm — Apple TV in both regions.

And finally…

Minute 98 of Hamburg versus Bayer Leverkusen in the German Bundesliga on Wednesday, and Luka Vuskovic has not one but two chances to steal a point for Hamburg. Both get away from him; the second — headed over from point-blank range (above) — a real sitter.

The misses didn’t amuse me so much as his reaction: a full-blooded attempt to kick Leverkusen’s goalframe to pieces. Cheer up, son. You’re at Hamburg on loan from Spurs and in a parallel universe, you’d be caught up in that mess back in north London…