If the first step towards winning a relegation fight is to accept you are in one, then Tottenham have taken it.
They did that when they fired Thomas Frank and hired Igor Tudor. Out with the culture carrier and in with the instant fix, but there are other steps to take, and they are unlikely to be pain free.
Tudor does not inherit a squad designed for a salvage operation.
Instead, he attempts this mission with a badly depleted and misshapen squad, seemingly littered with players feeling sorry for themselves, labouring under the misapprehension that their elite talents really deserve to be somewhere better.
That is not a terribly good sign for Spurs. Most managers designing a team to avoid relegation want players with appetite for the fight and a reason to fight for each other and trust each other.
‘The key looking back on my own experiences was the bond we had between the players,’ says Francis Benali, a legend of Southampton who represented the club for 16 years, during which they persistently defied the odds to survive in the Premier League.
Tottenham are firmly in a relegation battle with a 4-1 defeat by Arsenal leaving the club just four points above the drop zone
Igor Tudor has been brought in to deliver an instant fix, but Tottenham’s squad appears ill-suited to a relegation battle and has also been decimated by injuries
Francis Benali, left, was a veteran of relegation battles with Southampton during his career and tells Daily Mail Sport about what Tottenham need to do to avoid a shock relegation
‘We had different personality traits in those squads, but our togetherness was always a big factor. Us against the world, we had a camaraderie. The manager needs to know what he is getting from every player he puts on the pitch. We fought for each other as well as the club and supporters.
‘Over time, the likes of me, Matt Le Tissier and Jason Dodd had been through it and knew what it took and what was at stake. We knew the effect relegation would have on the club, the city and the people whose jobs would come under threat and businesses that would suffer if we went down.
‘I look back on it all with pride. I would have loved to have been fighting for titles and trophies, but circumstances were different. For a large part of my time in the team we were fighting to stay in the Premier League and there were times when we did it and it felt euphoric.’
David Moyes and Sam Allardyce have often turned to a midseason bonding trip to good effect in their relegation battles. One of the first things Tudor did upon his arrival at Spurs was to take the first team out for a meal.
‘Another factor was genuine belief,’ Benali tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘I never ever believed we would go down. You must carry that attitude. Any small element of doubt and cracks can appear.
‘Supporters believed too. They were always behind us when we needed them, and The Dell helped, a unique stadium with the crowd in close proximity. Post retirement, I’ve spoken to plenty of players who told me how much they hated playing there.’
Spurs have one of the finest stadiums in world football, where the atmosphere is seldom intimidating enough to bother the away team but usually jittery enough to transmit nerves to the home team.
Few in the Spurs camp have experience of fighting relegation. Certainly not as a group. Last season, they rolled in 17th but never under genuine threat because the bottom three had been cut well adrift.
Tudor took his Tottenham squad out for a meal last week, with team bonding a key factor cited be Benali
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has rarely proved intimidating to opponents, while the crowd is jittery enough to transmit nerves to the home team
Tottenham should, however, have quality within their ranks to pull away from trouble
A key factor could be the return of injured players such as Mohammed Kudus before the end of the campaign
This is one area where rivals such as West Ham, Nottingham Forest and Leeds might have an edge. They have been stress-tested at this end of the Premier League.
Some of the Spurs players, however, might be displaying some of the cracks under pressure to which Benali refers.
There has been evidence of ill-discipline under Frank, whether it that is the sight of Micky van de Ven and Djed Spence snubbing the boss’s request to join him in appreciation of the fans or Romero’s red cards and social media posts or Yves Bissouma’s unpunctuality and nitrous oxide habit.
Spurs will hope this is where Tudor will live up to his reputation as a strongman leader. He does not suffer fools. He is not afraid to topple egos and omit stars from his team, as Dimitri Payet will attest from their time together at Marseille and Wesley Sneijder from Galatasaray.
Spurs though, while they may be short of experience in the dog fight do have quality. There were signs against Arsenal that Tudor might eke a little more than Frank out of Randal Kolo Muani, who had a successful spell working with him at Juventus last season.
Romero will be back after serving the last two games of his four-game ban, Dominic Solanke and Richarlison should be up to full fitness soon. Pedro Porro is likely to be the next of the injury absentees back.
How they would love to see the creative force of Dejan Kulusevski back before the end of the season, or even the trickery of Mohammed Kudus or the youthful energy of Lucas Bergvall.
‘For all the importance of unity, we always had a jewel in Matt Le Tissier,’ says Benali. ‘We knew Matt had the ability to produce something out of nothing in any given game and often he did. There were always turning points when people had written us off and one win lifted morale and gave us momentum.’
One came at Norwich in April 1994. Saints were 3-1 down but fought back with the help of a Le Tissier hat-trick and won 5-4. ‘One win can lift morale and turn momentum,’ he adds. ‘Nowadays, all the players are such a high technical quality.
Having accepted they are part of the fight, Spurs go on in search of their turning point. Across London to Fulham on Sunday and then at home against Crystal Palace, the last team they beat in the Premier League, on December 28.
