Last season was a miserable one for Spurs fans. The club narrowly avoided relegation on the final day of the Premier League season and the inquiry as to how Spurs had found themselves finishing 17th two seasons in-a-row began almost immediately.
This summer, things appear to have changed at Spurs. The club transfer record has been broken twice, following the arrivals of Mateus Fernandes and Sandro Tonali, and Spurs saw off competition from other Premier League clubs to convince Fernandes and Tonali to join them.
There has been a major clearout of players, too, from former captain Cristian Romero (Atlético Madrid) and Djed Spence (Inter Milan) to Yves Bissouma, Radu Dragusin (Fiorentina, loan) and Guglielmo Vicario (Juventus, loan.)
Head coach Roberto De Zerbi has said that the club are not yet done in the transfer market and Spurs continue to be interested in Manchester City winger Savinho and Liverpool forward Cody Gakpo, according to ESPN reports.
The club's hierarchy appear determined for Spurs not to find themselves in the same position as last year again. What De Zerbi achieved in pulling the club back from the brink of relegation last season should not be underestimated and, with him at the helm, there are reasons for Spurs fans to feel optimistic.
ESPN takes you through our predictions for Spurs this season, from who the breakout player will be to what the biggest concern is and where we think Spurs will finish in the Premier League table.
Top scorer
Just who is going to score the goals for Spurs this season? It feels like the biggest question, and biggest problem, in the squad. Tottenham's injury woes are still present and a number of their forwards remain sidelined, including Mohammed Kudus, Dominic Solanke, Dejan Kulusevski, Wilson Odobert, and Xavi Simons.
While the club moved decisively to secure their first-choice targets in midfield and defence, with the arrivals of Mateus Fernandes, Sandro Tonali and Jan Paul van Hecke, things have moved far slower in the transfer window on the forward front.
As it stands, it looks like Richarlison will be the one leading the line in Spurs' first game of the new Premier League season. With a lack of forward options -- although the transfer window is still open for another two weeks -- it appears that Richarlison will be relied upon by Spurs to score the team's goals.
The Brazilian got 11 goals in the league last season and he is likely to benefit from the crosses that will be sent into the box by winger Mathys Tel and new arrival Andy Robertson -- a left-back renowned for his crossing ability.
Richarlison may not be the quickest of strikers but he has good instincts in the box and, as it stands, is the only fit No. 9 that Spurs have. He scored on multiple occasions in Tottenham's unbeaten preseason and has plenty of experience scoring against Premier League defenders.
However, with Richarlison being Spurs' only available striker right now, the club need to accelerate moves for forward players as soon as possible. Richarlison has a poor injury record and has experienced lengthy layoffs during his time in north London.
If Spurs do not sign any more forward players before the transfer window and Richarlison picks up an injury, with Solanke still out, then the team will be in big trouble. -- Hannah Ryan
Breakout player
Mateus Fernandes was a real bright spot for West Ham last season, even as the club hurtled towards relegation. He has now swapped east London for the north side of the English capital and, at 22, his prime years are yet to come.
Tottenham paid £85 million ($114.9m) to bring him in and for good reason, despite the fact that Fernandes suffered back-to-back relegations with Southampton and then West Ham.
The Portuguese midfielder was one of the toughest-tacklers in the Premier League while at West Ham last season. In fact, he ranked third in the league for tackles won last season.
He also ranked third in ground duels won and fourth in accurate switches of play made. He was in the top 10 for distance covered by midfielders in the league last season, having covered 279.3km, more than any Spurs player managed last season.
Fernandes is comfortable receiving the ball under pressure and turning -- something which very few Spurs players were capable of doing last season -- and he is also able to then progress the play, either through using his ball-carrying ability to break free from pressure or through his passing ability.
Spurs sorely lacked a player with top drawer passing vision last time out but Fernandes has a penchant for finding teammates in space and threading a ball through for them at exactly the right time.
He is capable of baiting the opposition press and playing line-breaking passes -- something which will help him fit in perfectly in Roberto De Zerbi's team, as the Italian is well-known for asking his sides to bait the press and then surge into attack.
Fernandes brings something to Spurs that they desperately need in midfield. Excellent passing vision and ability, confidence on the ball when under pressure, tough-tackling and the ability to successfully bait the press and spark an attacking move.
Along with Sandro Tonali, he is set to revitalise Spurs in the middle of the park, and is sure to continue the upward trajectory he has been on since moving to the Premier League two years ago. -- Hannah Ryan
Who is it a make or break season for?
Dominic Solanke has divided opinion among the Spurs faithful since becoming the club's then-record signing (£65m) in the summer of 2024.
He arrived with a proven ability to score goals in the Premier League, having bagged 19 for Bournemouth the previous season. Another factor which attracted Spurs was that he missed very few matches with injury during his five years on the south coast.
The Spurs squad has been in a near-permanent injury crisis since his arrival and Solanke has not been immune to the supposed curse afflicting the squad.
As well as a diminishing number of appearances due to injury, Solanke's returns in front of goal have dropped during his time in north London. He managed 0.5 goals per game in all competitions during his last season for Bournemouth in 2024-25 (38 Premier League matches), 0.38 goals per game in all comps in his first Spurs season (27 Premier League matches) and 0.3 goals per game in all comps in 2025-26 (15 Premier League matches).
Solanke was dogged by a recurring ankle injury last season and he hasn't been seen in a Spurs shirt since their preseason friendly against Chelsea in Australia on Aug. 1.
While he's no Harry Kane or Son Heung-Min, Solanke has often looked a capable presence up top when able to get a string of games under his belt. But he'll need to give Spurs an adequate return on their investment this season to stop the club's decision makers from eyeing a new starting No. 9 this time next year. -- Tom Chambers
What would be a success?
Since Mauricio Pochettino's Premier League title challengers ran out of steam after the Champions League final in 2019, every Spurs fan asked this question seems to have given the same same answer ahead of the start of a new season: qualification for the Champions League and winning, or at least going on a deep run in, one of the cups.
After years of falling short of that aim, Ange Postecoglou delivered on the Spurs fans' brief via the unconventional route of winning the Europa League and qualifying for the Champions League as a result in 2025.
He did so amid a worrying decline for the team more generally, however, with Spurs registering their first of two consecutive 17th-place finishes in the Premier League.
One 17th-place finish is an anomaly, but two is the beginning of a trend -- fans' expectations will need to be tempered as a result.
While Roberto De Zerbi's arrival in March saved Spurs from the unthinkable and they've splashed the cash in the transfer window this summer, expecting to go from one place above the relegation zone to Europe's top club competition within 12 months is surely fanciful.
Therefore, a top-half finish and breaking Spurs' FA Cup semifinal hoodoo (they've lost their last eight in a row) would be a sure sign of progress. -- Tom Chambers
Biggest concern?
There have been plenty of factors behind Spurs' recent plummet down the table with poor squad management, questionable manager hires and a lack of boardroom focus on the club's on-pitch fortunes high up the list.
But it's arguably two years of debilitating injuries that bear the greatest responsibility for Spurs' descent.
Finding a reason for Spurs' seemingly never-ending injury crisis is difficult, with some pointing towards the churn of staff in the behind-the-scenes medical teams over the last few weeks as the primary culprit.
You'd think there is also an element of bad luck behind four different players tearing their ACLs in the same season and another having not played for more than a year with a serious knee injury of his own.
Whatever the answer is to solving Spurs' injury woes, they need to find it soon as another season of scrambling around for enough fit senior players to name a competitive starting XI will render 2026-27 another campaign of failure.
Seven players -- Dejan Kulusevski, Wilson Odobert, Xavi Simons, Mohammed Kudus, Micky van de Ven, Destiny Udogie and Solanke -- seem likely to miss Spurs' season opener at Brentford on Saturday so the curse has very much rolled on to the new season.
Interestingly, the last game for which Spurs had every player available for selection was the 2019 Champions League final against Liverpool. -- Tom Chambers
Prediction
As much as I have my doubts about this new-look Spurs' team's ability to spectacularly reverse their fortunes this season, they do have a manager who pulled off something of a miracle last season and some midfield quality that has been sorely lacking of late.
So with those factors and the lack of European football, I'll predict that Spurs will finish seventh when all is said and done on May 30. Despite the inevitable injury pile-up, I fancy them to do ok in the cups, but they won't get past the quarterfinal stage in either competition. -- Tom Chambers
Spurs have undoubtedly made serious improvements to the first team. The midfield pairing of Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes offers something new and exciting, while Jan Paul van Hecke is much less of a liability and a magnet for suspension than Cristian Romero, so the centre-back pairing of him and his compatriot Micky van de Ven should be a solid one.
Sweeping changes have been made and that is likely a good thing -- given that Spurs could not carry on in the way that they have for the past few seasons. De Zerbi helped to change the fortunes of the club last season and the players are clearly behind him. Without European football and with the spending spree they've gone on, I predict that Spurs will finish fourth and will qualify for the Champions League again. I predict them to reach the semifinals of the FA Cup and the quarterfinals of the League Cup but don't suspect they'll make it any further than that. -- Hannah Ryan