Tottenham would struggle to keep hold of head coach Roberto De Zerbi if they are relegated to the Championship and would also have to completely overhaul their squad.
That is the view of former Spurs boss Tim Sherwood, though he remains optimistic his old team can scrape together the points needed to stay up.
Spurs are at enormous risk of dropping to the second tier for the first time since 1978, less than a year after they lifted the Europa League trophy under Ange Postecoglou.
They conceded a late equaliser in a 2-2 draw with Brighton on Saturday, and then saw fellow relegation candidates Nottingham Forest fight back to beat Burnley 4-1.
With Wolves and Burnley all but down, the Opta supercomputer assigns Spurs a 56.6% chance of suffering the drop.
De Zerbi signed a five-year contract upon succeeding Igor Tudor earlier this month, and the Italian has pledged to stay even in the Championship, though Sherwood does not see that as a realistic prospect.
Sherwood also expects Spurs to lose most of their players if they are relegated, though he does not expect their supporters to be too bothered by a rebuild.
He told Stats Perform: “How many, if you asked the Tottenham fans, would they want to keep anyway? Not too many, I would suggest. And it’s a completely different outlook.
“Your recruitment has to change. It’s a different animal, the Championship, compared to the Premier League.
“You have to get players, first and foremost, who want to play in the Championship and then want to progress with this great club.
“And that includes the manager as well. He’s said, ‘it’s not about what division we’re in, it’s about how aligned I am with the hierarchy’. Well, we’ve seen Roberto De Zerbi get unaligned with a lot of clubs he’s been at, so it’s easy to jump, isn’t it?
“If they’re in the championship, I think it would be very difficult for them to keep hold of him, because why would he want to manage a team in a championship? If he sticks to his word, then he stays.”
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And Sherwood, who was in charge of Tottenham for the second half of the 2013-14 season, still harbours doubts about De Zerbi’s lack of experience in a basement battle.
“It’s a huge worry. This group of players have let the club down for a couple of years now,” he said.
“We keep seeing the hierarchy changing managers. First it was Ange Postecoglou, then Thomas Frank, then Igor Tudor came in and it never worked and there wasn’t a lift.
“Now we’ve got De Zerbi, who I think is a very good manager. But we’ve never seen him operate in these circumstances.”
Nevertheless, Sherwood believes Spurs have enough to stave off the drop, predicting they will win three of their final five games, which are against Wolves, Aston Villa, Leeds United, Chelsea and Everton.
“I’m seeing positive signs, definitely. But forget positive signs, we need points. I genuinely believe they will get three wins between now and the end of the season,” he said.
“Now, whether three wins is going to be enough… Other teams are going to need to not win certain games. But I think there’s three games they will win and stay in the division.”
