(Credit: Manh Tung - Breaking Media Ltd)

Ciaran Morrison

Wed 15 April 2026 10:03, UK

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Tottenham’s situation is looking bleaker with each passing game after Roberto De Zerbi lost his first match in charge.

That is according to ex-Everton, Aston Villa, and Aberdeen chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking exclusively to Football Insider, who believes Spurs’ players did not show enough fight to beat Sunderland.

Sunderland won the contest 1-0 at the Stadium of Light, with De Zerbi now left with just six games to preserve Spurs’ Premier League status.

Spurs are two points adrift of safety, with the north London club now winless in 14 league matches and still searching for their first league victory of 2026.

De Zerbi’s first home match in charge of Spurs is against his former club Brighton, where the need for three points is becoming a matter of urgency.

Tottenham ‘odds on’ to suffer Premier League relegation

Everton’s former chief Keith Wyness – who served as CEO at Goodison Park between 2004 and 2009 and now runs a football consultancy advising elite clubs – believes Spurs need to show more passion and desire if they are to get out of their current predicament.

Speaking on the new edition of Football Insider‘s Inside Track podcast, Wyness thinks Spurs fans will have been left “shortchanged” by the efforts of the players against Sunderland.

He told Football Insider‘s Inside Track podcast: “I looked very closely, and I was hoping to see signs. I didn’t see them coming out really fighting.

“I didn’t see people getting booked, smashing into tackles as though they were desperate. I thought they were unlucky with a goal, a deflected goal. A point would have kept them happy, but it wasn’t to be.

“I didn’t see that fight that I was hoping for from De Zerbi. There are still a few games left, but I’m afraid it’s looking bleaker and bleaker as we go forward for Spurs.

“The bookies have them now, I think even money or even odds on to go down now. So that’s the opinion. I was looking for all those signs, but I didn’t see them. And that’s what worried me more than anything else, was I wanted to see even some reckless stuff going in there, real passion, fighting and desire.

“There has to be control as well, but you need a bit of an edge in a relegation fight. And I didn’t see it. Look, we know Sunderland was a very tough place to go on the back of winning the Tyne-Wear Derby. The fans were going to be celebrating the homecoming after that game.

“It was always going to be tough. It wasn’t as though Sunderland were at full pace either. They did enough though to win, but Spurs, I just felt a little bit shortchanged by the effort that was put in.”

Tottenham set to miss out on transfer target

Spurs’ transfer plans are suffering from the uncertainty over which league the club will be in next season, with James Trafford the latest player they could miss out on a move for.

Sources have told Football Insider that Spurs’ pursuit of Trafford is proving difficult, with Newcastle now believed to be leading the race for the 23-year-old.

Whilst Trafford wants to become the number one goalkeeper wherever he decides to move to next, he would not be interested in dropping down to the Championship.

Guglielmo Vicario is expected to leave Spurs in the summer, and there are doubts over whether Antonin Kinsky can make the step-up to become the number one.