As well as Simons: Tudor must bin Spurs star who’s the new Skipp & Winks

The Athletic’s Colin Millar has made the claim that Tottenham Hotspur have “been the worst team in the league this calendar year.” How fiercely can that be contested?

Even the staunchest Spurs supporters would admit that their side are in danger of falling from the top flight, and that Igor Tudor has quite the job on his hands in pulling the club over the finish line with three teams still trailing them.

Millar wasn’t being hyperbolic. Tottenham are quite literally the worst side in the Premier League right now. In 2026, they are the only team yet to win a game, and with just four points, they are three points behind Wolves and Burnley.

Herein lies the severity of the north Londoners’ struggle. They are in real danger, and so many stars have flattered to deceive. Xavi Simons, new recruit, has been somewhat unfortunate, but even so, Tudor might want to considering dropping the attacking midfielder.

Why Tudor could drop Xavi Simons

Let’s just make something clear: Simons is a talented playmaker who could become a standout force for Tottenham, both in the Premier League and in Europe.

However, it’s fair to say that he’s ebbed and flowed in the Premier League so far, unable to create and sustain the spark that Spurs have needed for fine form.

Against Arsenal, he struggled to find any rhythm and was dispossessed too easily. In fact, he was taken off the ball seven times, marking a record for a single Premier League match this season.

Simons is a hard-working and dynamic attacking midfielder. He has the potential to be a success at Tottenham, but as the recent defeat to Arsenal emphasised, he has much still to learn.

He must be dropped, and maybe that means Tudor will have to rework the system. Call that drastic, but it’s hardly as if the current set-up is working.

And Simons isn’t the only one who might need to make way.

Tudor could boldly drop Spurs signing

Having only joined the crew at Tottenham last month, Conor Gallagher probably wouldn’t take kindly to being dropped from the starting line-up.

But the England international might not be providing ENIC Group with bang for their buck right now, poor throughout the past several games in the Premier League.

In fact, while he’s crisp on the ball, Gallagher’s one-dimensional passing play could see him become the club’s new version of Harry Winks and Oliver Skipp, two midfielders who passed with confidence but lacked ideas and innovation.

Both academy graduates now play for Leicester City in the Championship, with the Foxes fighting against relegation to League One, currently in the relegation zone following a six-point deduction.

An industrious and intelligent player, the 26-year-old has been swallowed up on his return to English shores. He’s functional, but he lacks inspiration on the ball and is yet to prove himself the invaluable cog that he was billed to be when he joined from Atletico Madrid in a £35m package.

The one-time Chelsea prospect is bound to enjoy brighter days in Tottenham colours, but they haven’t arrived yet and he hasn’t shown himself to be an unmovable part of Tudor’s midfield.

Averaging nearly two tackles and five duels per Premier League fixture so far, Gallagher is hardly useless, but he’s not creating any kind of connection with someone like Simons and he’s not fashioning openings himself, yet to create a big chance for the Londoners.

Tottenham are expecting Lucas Bergvall to return from injury in the coming weeks, and Pedro Porro too. With this in mind, Gallagher could find himself dropped, with the latter’s return meaning Archie Gray could return to the natural midfield role he so rarely gets to play.

The teenager has emerged as something of a leader for the Lilywhites, and Bergvall is raw but brilliant, a real force on the ball.

Gallagher has joined Tottenham at a testing time. He is undoubtedly a talented midfielder who simply doesn’t have the right skillset to spark the instant turnaround that the powers that be needed to find during the winter transfer window.

But he’s in danger of joining former players like Skipp and Winks and finding it difficult to succeed at the heart of Tottenham’s midfield.

In keeping with the theme of their new boss’ name, Tottenham are in danger of becoming a thing of the past. To stave off the almost unfathomable threat of falling into the Championship, they must be more progressive in their play, and while Simons has the quality to play that part, there’s a sense that Gallagher might be too limited on the ball to enact meaningful change from the centre of the park.

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