Igor Tudor is keen to quickly discover who the “soldiers” are in his Tottenham squad, as they fight to stay in the Premier League.
Spurs sit just two places above the relegation zone, with only four points separating them from 18th-place West Ham, but that could change by the time they kick off against Fulham on Sunday.
Tottenham remain the only side in the Premier League without a victory so far in 2026, failing to win any of their nine matches (D4 L5).
It is only the fourth time they have gone through January and February without a league win, along with 1935 (seven games), 1994 (seven) and 1999 (six).
Tudor lost his first match in charge 4-1 to Arsenal, and he is looking to avoid becoming the first Spurs manager since November 2004 to lose his opening two games at the helm.
But he believes there were positives to take from their north London derby defeat, with the club needing to swiftly embrace their place in the relegation fight.
Asked if he had enough soldiers in his squad, Tudor insisted: “I hope so. I believe, yes.
“After the first game, I said if you play against the best team in the world at this moment, for us, I need to be honest, it’s not a realistic game to show we are soldiers or we are not soldiers.
“That’s the truth, but they show they can be in some parts of the game. For long periods in the game, we had problems, in defence especially. It’s not easy against them. Let’s see in the next games.”
Spurs are given just a 4.2% chance of dropping into the Championship by the Opta supercomputer.
Their most likely finishing position is expected to be 16th (26.5%), which would be a minor improvement on last year’s 17th-place finish.
Spurs are hoping to end their winless run when they travel to Fulham on Sunday, but they have lost their last two at Craven Cottage by an aggregate score of 5-0, having previously won seven on the bounce at the stadium between 2010 and 2023.