This is the most competitive league in years – and that's very bad news for Spurs

The Premier League is tighter than it's been in years – and while that's already shaken up the title race, the real story could be unfolding at the bottom of the table. Also this week:

As Igor Tudor walked into the Tottenham Hotspur dressing room after that defeat to Arsenal, he carried the air of a man realising just how big this challenge is. His message to the players was much the same as the one he relayed to the media: it's time to look in the mirror. Because right now, that squad is staring at something that had still seemed impossible for so long. They're in a relegation battle. Spurs, one of the Super League founders and currently among the wealthiest clubs in the world, could go down.

Some Tottenham fans reading this will no doubt be screaming that they've been warning of this for months, that the club has long been in real danger of sleepwalking into relegation. In attempting to take a non-supporter view, though, it was hard not to think the squad simply had too much quality. The wage bill was too high, suggesting there was just enough individual class.

Except the reality is that the situation has now gone far beyond that. This is no longer about quality. As Tudor rightly intuited, this is about psychology, about emotion, about the swirl engulfing the club.

There is also another element, running parallel to Tottenham's form, further squeezing the club.

There is now considerable evidence to suggest this is the most competitive Premier League in a decade, since Leicester City's title season of 2015–16. And we're beyond simply a more difficult league, as discussed in Inside Football recently. There's more to it – something the Premier League should actually be delighted about. Its unique selling point is back, and has never been more evident.

And that could yet create more havoc.

Taking the most immediate metric – and one that Spurs inadvertently contributed to – the 36 points between first place and the relegation zone is the lowest at this stage, after matchweek 27, since 2015–16. Back then, it was 32. Now, it would be 35, had Arsenal's away match against Wolves not been brought forward due to the Carabao Cup final.

The nature of that 2-2 draw was rightly seen as a mini-crisis for Arsenal, to the point that Mikel Arteta spent a long time discussing it even after the 4-1 win over Spurs. But it can also be true that a draw away to the bottom team isn't necessarily the defining result in the way it would have been in previous seasons.

Wolves are, after all, the 29th wealthiest club in the world. They might have only won one game so far this season, but they haven't lost badly. Their worst defeat was 4-0 on the opening day, against Manchester City, before the managerial switch that stabilised the side. As referenced earlier in this newsletter, and in a stat that has conspicuously barely changed, that game is one of only six Premier League matches this season to involve defeats of a four-goal margin or higher.

This is astonishingly low for this late in the campaign, with 11 matchweeks left. By comparison, even "the Leicester season" saw 20 such results, and the number was as high as 32 in 2023–24.

This shows the gaps between teams aren't as wide but it has another effect too. The top teams – especially those chasing the title – can't take their foot off the gas. They can't simply make four substitutions to rest players when cruising. They have to stay fully switched on, as witnessed in Arsenal's draw with Wolves and in so many of Man City's recent matches.

That only deepens the physical and mental fatigue caused by a congested calendar. And it's impossible not to see how this contributes to another telling statistic. City's nervy win over Newcastle United was their third in a row, which put Pep Guardiola's side on the longest winning streak in the Premier League. Only Liverpool are currently even on two wins in a row.

The low stakes of these streaks have been a feature of the season. Stumbling Aston Villa – whose late equaliser against Leeds United might still prove crucial in the race to secure a Champions League place – have the longest streak at just eight. After that, it's City on six, and Arsenal and Liverpool on five each.

This only proves how difficult it is to generate momentum. Teams can't put winning runs together in the same way as previous years. There's a high degree of fallibility, which makes for greater unpredictability – anyone can beat anyone.

The reasons for this are fairly clear, and almost mirror what happened after 2015–16. Then, much of the focus was on how wealthy clubs responded by appointing the biggest managers in the game, when Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte joined Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp, and Mauricio Pochettino. But they were also doing something more significant.

They were involved in discussions that drove even more Champions League prize money to the wealthiest clubs, as the "Super League" group exploited the vacuum at Uefa and Fifa following the 2015 fall of Sepp Blatter. This directly paved the way for the Super League and influenced the new Champions League. The wealthy clubs got what they long wanted – but it might be too much.

They may genuinely have bitten off more than they can chew – at least for now. The expanded Champions League has become an unintended balancing factor in European football. The greater number of games mitigates the effect of wealth, due to fatigue.

In the Premier League, there's been a further counterbalance from the massive influx of money over the past 13 years. Even clubs at the bottom have sophisticated coaching staffs and squads that could steamroll most of Europe. Wolves are difficult to break down. West Ham United have gained new respectability. Nottingham Forest have a solid mid-table squad.

There's even an argument that Burnley are performing better than Spurs. All of which is bad news for the one-time Super League club, even if they were always considered a junior partner.

The sheer competitiveness of the Premier League could see them fall, sleepwalking into relegation as Middlesbrough did in 1997, West Ham in 2003, Newcastle in 2009, or Leicester in 2023 – but potentially on a much greater scale. The second half of that Arsenal defeat was alarming in that regard.

Sunday's trip to Fulham may now be the biggest fixture of the weekend, revealing what Tottenham can actually achieve under Tudor.

The message from the rest of the league, however, is clear: you've never had to be sharper.

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Which four players do these career trajectories represent, and what moment in football connects them?

Swindon Town, Aston Villa, Bari, Southampton, (Swindown Town loan), Notts County, Rangers, Everton, Qianwei Huandao, Kansas City Wizards, Chongqing Longxin, Shenzhen Pingan, Tranmere Rovers

West Ham United, Manchester United, Inter Milan, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Swindon Town, Macclesfield Town

Manchester United, Barcelona, (Bayern Munich loan), Manchester United, Chelsea, Southampton, Everton, Blackburn Rovers

Zirka Kirovohrad, Dynamo Kyiv, Shakhtar Donetsk, Manchester United, Everton, Fiorentina, Rangers (Manchester City loan), Southampton, Al Hilal, Dynamo Moscow, Saturn Ramenskoye, Krylia Sovetov

The most important minute for the most lucrative competition?

As noted above, that final minute on Saturday afternoon – alongside the decisive stoppage-time goal at the City Ground – could prove crucial in the Champions League race.

Villa had been staring down another home defeat, which might have further narrowed their gap to sixth during a supposedly forgiving run, only to be rescued by Tammy Abraham's late strike. Almost simultaneously, Chelsea surrendered a 1-0 lead to Burnley, with Zian Flemming equalising. Same scoreline, but a very different feeling. There was also Liverpool, potentially building momentum with a frantic late win at Nottingham Forest.

All of these clubs are juggling European campaigns, which could bring even greater inconsistency. Liam Rosenior now faces his own mini-crisis, as Chelsea must find a way back to winning ways. That, ultimately, is the nature of this season's Premier League.

The volatile but forceful middle

As for the bottom, it's a relief Sunderland have the points on the board. Many of those had been built up through their strong home form, yet here they were losing at the Stadium of Light to Fulham. Positions from seventh to 15th feel just as volatile as everything else in the Premier League right now – a direct result of that very competitive middle tier. You definitely wouldn't want to be predicting results this week (as I hinted in my Friday newsletter, which you can access by joining Inside Football here!).

He's faced plenty of criticism, but this weekend it felt like he finally scored his first truly crucial goal for Arsenal.

As bad as it was for Forest, Sunderland, Chelsea, and even Brentford, no one is feeling as miserable as Spurs. They are confronting the unparalleled nightmare of Arsenal winning the title as they tumble down the table, having been thrashed twice by their great rivals – and with Eberechi Eze, the player they missed out on once again proving the hero.

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The players are, in order: Paul Rideout, Paul Ince, Mark Hughes, Andrei Kanchelskis

Everton's last trophy was from the 1-0 victory over Manchester United in the 1995 FA Cup final, with the two teams set to meet tonight. Rideout scored the winner in that game, with the result – and a rare trophyless season for United at that point – playing into Sir Alex Ferguson's decision to sell three of his major stars that summer: Ince (who went to Inter Milan) and Hughes (who went to Chelsea) started the game, but Kanchelskis did not. The Russian international would leave United for Everton after an acrimonious ending to his Old Trafford career.

Drop me an email and let me know how you did. Thanks for reading – and see you on Friday!

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