Tottenham will be hoping that the 2025/26 season saw the club bottom out following a series of recent struggles.
The club only secured their Premier League status on the final day of last season, as they meandered to a second consecutive 17th-place finish, but did not have a cup win to fall back on this season, following their 2025 Europa League triumph.
The reasons for Spurs' recent struggles have been well-documented, with managerial upheaval and questionable recruitment two of the main issues the club have faced over the past few years.
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Peter Crouch on Tottenham's need to rebuild
Former Spurs striker Peter Crouch has pinpointed last season's hire of Igor Tudor as a particularly poor decision, and also believes his old side are in need of a significant rebuild, in order to back new boss Roberto De Zerbi.
"Roberto De Zerbi has been amazing at Spurs," Crouch tells FourFourTwo. "The Igor Tudor reign was disastrous.
"No-one saw that appointment coming and it didn’t ever start making any more sense."
Crouch believes that for a club with Tottenham's ambitions, this decision was symptomatic of a wider problem that has impacted the club for some time.
“There’s been serious mismanagement for a while now,” he continues, adding that Tottenham's recruitment has also been below par.
“They haven’t bought well enough,” Crouch adds, backing their recent summer spending spree, which has seen the club spend more than £300million going into the final days of the window.
This has seen the likes of Savio, Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes join, and despite an opening weekend 3-0 defeat to Brentford, Crouch insists it is now time for the club to kick on again.
"A club of that size can’t be trying to stay up by a couple of points," he insists, in a statement which also illustrates the size of the challenge facing De Zerbi and his side this year.
"I hope to see Spurs back to their best this season,” Crouch concludes.
