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Leicester City’s owners must accept the reality their 2016 fairytale counts for nothing when looking to sell the club.

King Power are actively seeking to end their 16-year reign of the Foxes, with investment bank Citigroup overseeing the sale.

A valuation of more than £200m had been reported in August, taking into account Leicester’s major assets, including their stadium and world-class training complex.

However, King Power chief executive and Leicester chair Aiyawatt “Top” Srivaddhanaprabha would be fortunate to receive anything close to that figure, with the club’s Premier League triumph a decade ago carrying far less weight than the fact they are currently a League One outfit.

“The valuation is on the high side,” Loughborough University sports finance expert Dan Plumley tells The i Paper.

“It’s probably more of a top-end Championship club valuation rather than their current position in League One. Revenue will have dropped compared to the Premier League days.

“However, they will be factoring in other assets that they own. The training complex is huge so there is some value in that.”

What is a fair price for Leicester City?

Plumley points towards Sheffield United’s £105m sale as a helpful comparison, although the Blades were top of the Championship at the time of their takeover in December 2024.

Leicester meanwhile are 13th in League One after six games, having suffered the ignominy of double relegation amid financial breaches and supporter protests.

The Foxes naturally hope to bounce back, but Plumley estimates potential buyers may chase a sale closer to £100m given the club’s current standing.

“It’s really tricky,” Plumey says. “I would assume the revenue would have dropped to around £80-100m. If you work off that and a small multiplier plus the training ground and assets, I think you could get to a rough estimate of around £130-150m.

“But if I’m the buyer, I’m probably trying to push that down to around £100m. All are estimates, though, and a lot of it based on ‘feel’ and comparative sales like Sheffield United.”

Debts and administration threats

On Tuesday, Leicester confirmed they had converted £8.5m of owner debts into new shares. King Power also wrote off £194m three years ago.

“The owners have always supported the club financially and have written off debt in the past to help them financially,” Plumley adds.

Meanwhile, rumours of an administration threat seem far-fetched for now. The club were deducted six points last season for financial breaches, but a careful summer transfer window alluded to the Foxes addressing losses in previous years.

They sold Jeremy Monga to Manchester City for £10m in July, and spent just £4.7m on players compared to the £43m they made in sales.

“On administration, that comes down to cash to keep going day to day. We can’t see that from the outside looking in so it’s tough to say how bad it is,” Plumley says.

“Expect them to continue pushing to sell the club though, that’s clear. And probably some more player departures in the winter window if the club is still in limbo sale wise.”

Who wants to buy Leicester?

Currently only Scottish-Indian businessman Neil Lal has publicly expressed his interest, telling Talksport his Bharat Consortium Group consortium – featuring three other investors – have made an offer.

“We are all wealthy businessmen,” Lal said last week. “We have contacted the board directly, which saves time. It is now a waiting game.”

On the reported £200m valuation, Lal added: “Leicester is valued as a successful Championship club, and yet it’s in League One. So, for me, the valuation is over the top.

“If, God forbid, Leicester ever drops down to League Two, financially, it’s Armageddon. It really is… My fear is if this [form] continues for the long term, over the next two-four months, and Leicester’s not playing well in the league, then unfortunately, we are going to have to review the situation and possibly walk. And I don’t want to do that. The foundations are there, but the problem is the financial stability is not.”

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The i Paper understands no formal engagements have taken place with the club despite the reported expressions of interest.

Reports of Saudi boxing mogul Turki Al-Sheikh being sounded out, just weeks after he pulled out of a takeover for Derby County, also remain rumour for now.

The i Paper contacted both Leicester City and Citigroup for comment.

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The most instructive line in a 528-word Chelsea statement packed with management speak and consultant-ese that your common or garden AI tool could have knocked up in seconds was about the immediate future of the club: “There will be no changes to the day-to-day operations, leadership or strategy”.

Which, given that the actual chairman was leaving and 25 per cent of the club’s shareholding was being sold, is quite the statement. It had the whiff, presumably accidental, of “We’ve got it now. The grown-ups have taken over”. Farewell Todd Boehly, how weirdly well we felt we all knew ye.

As several Chelsea supporters pointed out, changes to strategy and leadership might be worth considering given the tumultuous manner in which this club has operated over the last half decade. The statement also claimed an “unwavering commitment” to the “fundamental belief that the supporters are at the heart of everything”, which must come as a nice surprise to those fans who were moved to campaign over BlueCo’s multi-club operation and ticket pricing.

Boehly is the fall guy because this guy always looked likely to fall. He arrived as the great US disruptor who created only a mess and whose most significant impact upon English football culture was bringing amortisation from the boardroom to the streets. It’s net spend for the Snapchat generation.

His time at Chelsea was a web of illogical – and often farcical – dichotomies, not so much “do as I say not as I do” but more try to ignore both and hope that things find a way to work anyway. He was the outsider who famously had never heard of Ruud Gullit yet considered himself a reasonable choice as de facto sporting director for a transfer window or two – weirdly it went wrong.

He was the guy who declared that Chelsea needed to be patient six days before Mauricio Pochettino was sacked following a performance review. He was the American who wanted to learn about British football but almost immediately talked up an “All-Star game” in the calendar. He wanted to improve Chelsea’s academy but name-checked Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne as successful graduates to aspire to.

He wanted to bring the good times back to a club that had experienced quite a lot of good times in their recent past and, during his tenure, finished 12th, sixth, fourth and 10th in the Premier League. He said that he wanted to make fans proud and eventually saw them protest, not least because the club announced world-record annual losses despite effectively selling hotels and the women’s team to themselves.

Here’s the punchline: none of that really caused Boehly to leave. Instead, the relationship between him and Clearlake’s Behdad Eghbali, the two pillars of Chelsea’s ownership, became increasingly strained over stadium expansion inaction. It became the perfect emblem of the club: lots of money and more grand ambition, but more ego still and conflicting ideas so as a result nobody agrees on anything and nothing gets done.

Boehly was also never Chelsea’s majority owner. Although he clearly made a number of high-profile errors, he was authorised to make those errors by those around him. In many ways he has been a useful stooge for those people: something has gone wrong at Chelsea, it must be that daft American with all his silly ideas.

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Ultimately, Boehly got the flak for most missteps and others within the club must have been happy with that status or they would have moved to change that narrative. If Chelsea have been living on the edge so emphatically for five years, where were those who might have pulled them back? This was sold as a daft one-man morality tale; it wasn’t.

Chelsea need the stadium issue deciding, planning and executing. They need to reduce vast annual losses, even if that means shifting the transfer model. They need to stop the cycle of managers – none have done more than 100 games since Antonio Conte. They need to win a domestic trophy – it will be nine years in 2027. They need to finish in the Premier League’s top two – it’ll be 10 in 2027.

That is the headline here now. Not that Boehly has gone, but that Eghbali and Jose Feliciano have lost their human shield. They always had the influence. Now they have the spotlight too. And if things continue to stumble and stutter, Chelsea as the gold-plated, diamond-encrusted clown car, questions will be asked. If Boehly was the problem, what happens when Boehly isn’t there to blame anymore?

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Well, that didn’t take long. All that positivity after a fine end to last season, to banish the ghosts of Ruben Amorim past, vanished into the dead of a wet and miserable mid-September’s night.

Brighton’s fifth win in six visits to Manchester United meant this fallen giant continues on its dizzying spiral of decline and decay, after the brief hiatus of Michael Carrick’s first few months in charge.

While there are plenty of naysayers who believed Carrick to be out of his depth from the outset, few envisaged things unravelling this quickly. There’s more to United’s woeful start to the season, however, than an unsuitable head coach.

Sensible but underwhelming window

After years of transfer profligacy, United needed a more sensible transfer window. Splashing the cash around these parts has, in almost all cases, resulted in ill-fitting, highly-paid flops not living up to the billing in the post-Sir Alex Ferguson wilderness years.

While bitter rivals Manchester City splurged £300m on an elite new midfield, United brought in Chelsea’s fourth-choice central option, Aston Villa’s weary Youri Tielemans, an injured Carlos Baleba and Leeds United’s understudy goalkeeper.

All careful acquisitions, but nothing to get the pulses racing. At a time when an uplift from a major marquee arrival could have done regenerative wonders.

Same defence as four years ago

With all the funds needed for the midfield revamp, one department particularly remains neglected. In two of United’s four league matches this season, they have deployed a back four of Luke Shaw, Harry Maguire, Lisandro Martinez and Diogo Dalot.

The sight of the four club veterans is the perfect microcosm for the perpetual crises United find themselves in, given it is the same quartet who started the opening day defeat to, ironically, Brighton in 2022.

Supporters’ Groundhog Day sums up a club that, despite a recent takeover which promised the dawn of a new era of growth, remain stuck just where they were four years ago, when a fresh-faced Erik ten Hag became the latest coach to be handed the poisoned chalice.

Full-backs just aren’t good enough. Still

Dalot rightly looked proud as punch as he celebrated reaching 250 appearances for United at the weekend – an impressive milestone in any footballing career. For United fans looking on, before their side lost 1-0 to the 10 men of City, having had one shot on target, it felt like someone, somewhere was laughing at them.

The full-back is a fine professional who gives his all every week. His will and application have never been in question, but he is not good enough. He wasn’t when he signed eight years ago, and he isn’t now.

Luke Shaw, if not asked to play every single game, is. But lack of investment in the left-back area this year ensures he is overworked, and thus susceptible to faster, younger, less weary wingers. Rinse and repeat.

A strike force full of square pegs

United’s forward line lacks plenty of depth in a certain type of attacker. Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo, Marcus Rashford and Amad Diallo all offer a similar threat, without any of the hallmarks a proper striker the team so desperately needs possesses.

Benjamin Sesko is the only recognised striker in the unit and looks anything but ready to lead the line every week. The fitness is not there after an injury-hit pre-season, yet it is his lack of confidence on the ball that should be of more concern.

Wilcox not up to the task

When Ineos and Sir Jim Ratcliffe took their minority stake in the club and assumed total control of football matters, it was rammed home that they would be bringing in the “best in the class” at the top of the hierarchical structure, something the club had previously neglected to do.

Yet, it is becoming alarmingly clear Ineos have failed in the main tenet of their manifesto. Dan Ashworth may well have been an elite director of football, but that didn’t work out. Jason Wilcox, who had previously only undertaken a similar role at Southampton, has done little to suggest he is up to the task.

Several sources The i Paper has spoken to have questioned Wilcox’s credentials and see him as a key reason for continued failings. One insider highlighted Wilcox’s failed attempts to offload Rashford as a prime example. He spent “years slagging Rashford off” to other sporting directors before then speaking to the same senior executives to try, unsuccessfully, to get the outcast off the books.

Lack of identity still a major concern

This so-called elite hierarchy was then to make creating a lasting identity their modus operandi.

What City did so successfully under Pep Guardiola was to create a way of doing things that would outlast players and coaches, one you could easily identify and say, ‘that’s Manchester City’. Ratcliffe was desperate for something similar.

Eighteen months later, other than persistent failure, what does Ineos’ United stand for? Amorim, for his flaws, was starting something on the pitch. But what sets Carrick’s style of play apart from the others? The jury is very much still out on that one.

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Ownership who continue to anger supporters

While plenty of other fanbases turn toxic far more readily, Old Trafford is famed for getting behind its team when things turn sour. That unwavering loyalty is being severely tested by Ineos.

Another protest at the weekend was a more targeted one this time, in response to how supporters feel they are treated by the club, in the aftermath of United’s controversial crackdown on ticket touting. The mood around M16 hardly instigates many rallying cries from the Stretford End. And the players will be feeling that.

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STADIUM OF LIGHT — In a summer when £100m seemed to be the going rate for even the most mediocre of midfielders, how on earth did Enzo Le Fee manage to slip under the radar?

Le Fee possesses extravagant gifts but hardly any profile. If you are picking the most underrated player in the Premier League, the Sunderland schemer is a leading contender. He can score (two already this season despite an unfortunate penalty miss on Saturday); he can create; and – as Arsenal can testify after last weekend – Le Fee isn’t averse to digging in when the going gets tough. He is also only 26. Am I missing something?

Perhaps if he played in the red and white of Manchester United rather than this criminally unsung Sunderland side, it would be different. Or maybe it’s just a sign that Premier League scouting isn’t half as sophisticated as it proclaims to be.

Whatever it is Sunderland fans will be eternally grateful for the disrespect. If Granit Xhaka is the peerless setter of standards at the Stadium of Light, Le Fee is the creative brains of the operation. Regis Le Bris’ side have plenty of ways of hurting you but Le Fee is the one who really elevates them.

Just ask AZ Alkmaar. The Eredivisie high fliers thought they’d weathered the red and white storm on a night for the ages in Wearside but just as the cacophonous atmosphere threatened to turn nervy, up popped Le Fee with a moment of trickery to prise open an obdurate Dutch defence.

Weslley Patati was his unfortunate victim, providing just enough contact to give referee Jeremie Pignard a decision to make. Given the sway of a sell-out Stadium of Light crowd, he was never going to turn furious red and white appeals away.

Le Fee is no certainty from the spot but bottle is another string to his bow. Having missed against Arsenal, there was never a question about whether he’d step up here. The relief when he rolled it past Jari De Busser was palpable.

It felt like a big moment in what could be a really big season on Wearside. Much has been made of the challenges that a European campaign poses for a club with little muscle memory in the competition, but what about the opportunities? Xhaka was deadly serious when he said this week that Sunderland should aim to win the Europa League. This felt like the sort of result that starts the process of turning doubters into believers.

For a start, I can’t imagine there’s a team in the competition who would fancy a date on Wearside if it maintains this sort of feverish atmosphere for the rest of this campaign. Sunderland had promised to roll out the red carpet, and they didn’t disappoint, with an impressive tifo proclaiming they had “New shores to conquer” helping ramp up the already deafening noise.

AZ Alkmaar proved to be no mugs. Second in the Eredivisie and with much more European pedigree than a club returning to continental competition for the first time in 53 years, they ended up being pretty good dance partners for the Black Cats.

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Sunderland needed their best players to step up and Le Fee did just that. “You need good players at the right moment,” Le Bris said afterwards.

“And Enzo is a great player. He can create, he can score, he can help in defence. He’s just great.”
Overlooked in the Premier League, Le Fee might nevertheless be close to a big breakthrough elsewhere. New France boss Zinedine Zidane has included him in his preliminary squad for the forthcoming Nations League internationals and, if he was watching in midweek, the Sunderland man should be a shoo-in when the final list is confirmed on Friday.

Perhaps then the rest of the Premier League might wake up to the division’s most slept-on star.

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Nobody at Derby County saw it coming. An hour before the takeover of the club by Saudi Arabia government official Turki Al-Sheikh was due to complete, Al-Sheikh pulled out. The deal had been approved by the Independent Football Regulator, one potential sticking point.

They were ready. And then they were back where they started. Chief executive Stephen Pearce described it as “the wind being taken out of our sails”.

We may never know if Al-Sheikh was ever truly committed to Derby. Certainly this is not his first EFL club saga and there should be even more scepticism next time.

Once is never, twice is always and three times is enough to persuade everybody that you are wasting their time. That said, it is unorthodox behaviour to submit the deal for regulatory approval and then leave.

Personal view: Derby are far better without this association and its collapse should – bigger picture – be a cause for celebration. Al-Sheikh is intrinsically linked to the regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. There are accounts of intimidation and human rights violations for those who criticised Al-Sheikh over his work within the state’s sports ministry.

There will be supporters who say that the business of football is football and screw the rest. There will be those whose whataboutery points to Newcastle United or Manchester City. Some of them will shout at me on social media.

Fine, that is all a personal choice. But becoming the plaything of a man linked to state-authorised action is a position from which it is hard to reverse from.

The problem is the residual short-term gain. Less than two months on, the ripples of the snap decision taken by a multi-billionaire thousands of miles away continue. Derby, who finished eighth in the Championship last season, understandably put project plans for the stadium and training ground on hold pending a new owner.

Nobody can accuse David Clowes of not pulling his weight nor of failing to put Derby first. Not only did he save the club in the first place, and has backed it significantly since, he also continued to sign players this summer even when he knew that his tenure may be coming to a close.

Last summer, Derby paid around £6m for Patrick Agyemang. This summer it was £6m for Bobby Clark and £4m more on David Ozoh. They haven’t sold a player for more than £500,000 since Eiran Cashin in 2024-25 and have signed nine players for fees above £500,000 since, some many times that value.

Clowes’ generosity could never be questioned, particularly given that he also cleared the £20m high-interest loan to MSD Holdings.

“This is why he’s such an incredible owner,” Pearce told the BBC. “He thought the takeover was going to happen, he knew he was never going to get a penny back for all of that money he spent on those players and he still did it.”

Derby are officially off the market following the Al-Sheikh collapse, but Clowes was clearly open to investment or a sale.

The Rams lost £11.3m in their last published annual accounts (2024-25) and much of the heavy transfer spending has come since. It is an expensive hobby owning a Championship football club, where your prize is to lose money. At the last count, Derby’s staffing costs were 105 per cent of revenue.

The more pressing issue is Derby’s start to the season on the pitch. The club openly talked about progressing from last season’s position of eighth, which equates to a promotion push given the expansion of the play-offs. Manager John Eustace spent early August insisting that he needed more quality players.

Derby have lost five of their seven league games in 2026-27. They have already dropped six points from winning positions and have typically been desperate in the final 15 minutes of their matches (scored none, conceded four). This wasn’t how anybody foresaw this season starting.

Eustace has taken the brunt of the criticism. The defensive structure is clearly pretty uncertain, with the full-backs unable to stop dangerous crosses into the box. The performance in the final stages of games have prompted questions about fitness.

Derby have been undone by a series of individual mistakes – nothing will infuriate a manager more.

Perhaps that’s all coincidence: the manager has some issues at the same time plans shift off the pitch and, at the same time, certain players make unfortunate errors that exacerbate teething problems.

Maybe Derby will quickly respond – they finished eighth last season despite winning one of their first 10 league games after all. It happens.

There is another theory. Failed takeovers leave a residue, even if subconscious. Employees, on pitch and off, have prepared for a new era. Supporters, particularly those who had no moral quandaries about the Al-Sheikh bid, had grown excited about potential spending plans, broadened horizons and expanded expectations.

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That makes them less tolerable of the flaws they see now. You are perfectly content with your current car until someone lets you test drive a shiny new one with bells and whistles, offers it at a ludicrously low price and then drives off into the sunset.

Derby need not panic too much – they know here what a real emergency looks like. Clowes himself deserves only praise. Any resentment landing at his feet would be a gross disservice, given his indefatigability and investment through and after the worst days.

Still, this is a significant roadblock. The messaging may be business as usual with the same anticipation of progress. But a fanbase and a club were given a glimpse of a future. It has made Derby’s present seem a little blurry and mundane.

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Burnley chief executive James Holroyd resigned as chief executive just a year into his role due to issues in his working relationship with American owner Alan Pace, sources have told The i Paper.

Pace has gained a reputation for micromanagement within the club, who are currently bottom of the Championship after being relegated from the Premier League last season.

Holroyd was at Adidas for 14 years and Manchester United for another 14 before moving to Turf Moor in July last year. His decision, which has not yet been confirmed by the club, will not have been taken lightly.

Burnley supporters have become increasingly critical of Pace and his stewardship.

With debts spiralling out of control and no explanation for why sponsorship deals are vanishing into thin air, Holroyd’s hasty exit could not have come at a worse time.

First of all, Burnley are not in any immediate danger of going bust. Debts topped £142m in their last set of accounts, which also show refinancing has taken place to repay large amounts of these liabilities.

But under the new Independent Football Regulator, the window to apply for a provisional operating licence for the 2026-27 season opens in November. Without the provisional licence, clubs will not be able to operate.

Key to that process, where EFL clubs have to also prove their financial sustainability, is the Owners, Directors and Senior Executives (ODSE) framework. This makes it mandatory for teams to show their working club structure, where the chief executive is usually the head honcho.

Holroyd’s exit may be unfortunate timing or, as some sources believe, is tied to the upcoming increased scrutiny on the top end of the club’s hierarchy.

“There are so many red flags when it comes to Pace and Velocity [the sports investment arm of ALK Capital, Burnley’s owners],” one US-based advisor, who has worked with numerous Premier League clubs, tells The i Paper.

“For a start, in three years of trading, we are yet to see any accounts from Velocity.

“The way they bought Burnley as a leveraged buyout is well documented, but how does that work with their current debts? Burnley, the club, are effectively owed £80m by its owners, and yet the club are paying high interest loans off to refinance. There are so many questions we have zero answers for.”

All of this comes after shirt sponsor Finotive One was dropped on the eve of the new season. All replica shirts had to be recalled and replaced with a new company on the front. No explanation was given as to why, but it is understood the company that brands itself as a “trading ecosystem” failed to meet its contractual payments.

To pay for much of last season’s transfers, Burnley took on what are effectively payday loans, adding to worries over finances.

Burnley entered into a £40m factoring agreement with London-based Fasanara Capital in January 2025. This means that a proportion of incoming transfer fee instalments goes to them rather than the club. This factoring loan is thought to close in January 2027.

The panic sale of last season’s top goalscorer Zian Flemming to Ipswich Town on deadline day sparked further concerns. Why, in this era of inflated transfer fees, was a proven Premier League goalscorer allowed to leave for £20m, without being properly replaced?

Just how desperate for cash are Burnley? That remains the burning question on many Lancashire lips.

Holroyd has been removed from Burnley’s governance section on the club’s website and is understood to have stepped down last week, but we await confirmation.

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Burnley used to pride themselves on being debt free and in charge of their own destiny. Supporters are now disheartened, confused and, more pertinently, very concerned. Bury’s sorry tale happened just 20 miles away, Macclesfield’s dissolution not much further afield.

Burnley are not there yet, but a growing number of fans fear that under Pace’s leadership, they are heading that way.

The club and ALK Capital did not respond to requests for comment over Holroyd’s departure or Burnley’s financial issues.

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A ghostly chair sits empty at the top of Tottenham’s table. Despite this being one of their more valiant fightbacks, the scars of the past 18 months are not imaginary. Visible scar tissue has been gouged from this attack.

Defeat at Anfield in the Carabao Cup was partly self-inflicted, with eight changes from the XI that started in the stalemate with Everton. All three Liverpool goals from Alexis Mac Allister, Cody Gakpo and Dominik Szoboszlai were spectacular, but Mac Allister’s was the defining one simply by virtue of being the first. In 46 attempts since November 2024, Spurs have not won a match after conceding the opening goal. They are the precise opposite of a team who doesn’t known when it’s beaten.

In the moments after Conor Gallagher’s consolation header, it might have been different. Something, at least in a rudimentary form, is clicking. The best chances came and went, spurned by Lucas Bergvall, straight at Giorgi Mamardashvili, and Mohamed Kudus, who blasted over. Omar Marmoush was denied an equaliser by a miraculous Mamardashvili save; he is no out-and-out striker. There is only one of those available and Dominic Solanke started on the bench.

It is becoming harder to escape the conclusion that in spite of the millions spent, Spurs have made their attack weaker in material terms.

Spurs’ attacking problems

Not so much a case of absent hope, but of absent friends. Amid the glaring lack of a centre-forward, it was the one occasion when Richarlison was eligible to play having been left out of the Premier League squad for asking to leave.

Proposed moves to Everton, Turkish side Trabzonspor, and Vasco de Gama in his native Brazil collapsed. Since then, he has been sent to perish in exile, behind a phone screen posting sad replies to whatever attacks Roberto De Zerbi has made upon him this week.

Just six months ago, a triumphant Richarlison rocked up on Merseyside to salvage the first point of Igor Tudor’s brief reign. It would play a part in keeping Spurs up. The determination to freeze him out might have looked a masterstroke if De Zerbi’s side had started the new season better. With results as they are, it increasingly feels like stubbornness. An unedifying spectacle that is hurting Tottenham more than it is healing any dressing room angst. The same could be said of the weekend’s public berating of Mathys Tel, who is playing like a 20-year-old whose confidence is shot to pieces.

Luca Williams-Barnett, another young forward who might have been given his own opportunity in a weakened side, was cast out to the U21s again, on the scoresheet against Dinamo Zagreb just as the senior team were relinquishing their best hope of a trophy. Will Lankshear, who left for Middlesbrough in the summer, was scoring his eighth goal in all competitions this season.

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Where Tottenham were wasteful, Liverpool were clinical. Much like Richarlison, Mac Allister is not part of his manager’s long-term plans. There is no comparison as to how the two situations have been handled. It is no secret that Mac Allister is unhappy at not being offered a new contract, so the World Cup winner first struck his revenge in the Champions League against Atletico Madrid and followed that with a goal and assist here.

The other criticism of De Zerbi will come from those who suggest he did not take this competition seriously enough. He has complained of his senior players not being sharp and still several were rested.

The No 10 position ought to be a source of great solace, given it is where Spurs’ most naturally gifted operators sit. Instead Xavi Simons is a long way off returning, James Maddison is not able to play 90 minutes and Mateus Fernandes, when he plays further forward, is similarly being nursed carefully. Whatever the personnel, the same problems remain.

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