Tottenham enter their final six Premier League matches under heavy pressure, sitting in the relegation zone and two points from safety, while former defender Toby Alderweireld claims the club’s leading players, including Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, are not delivering the level of performance demanded in such a situation.

Spurs have not won any of their 14 league fixtures in 2026, with a record of five draws and nine defeats, leaving the team as the only Premier League side still without a victory this calendar year, and adding extra weight to Saturday’s home meeting with Brighton.

Alderweireld, speaking about Tottenham’s struggles across the campaign, argued that the issue goes beyond tactics or luck and centres on the output of the biggest names in the squad. “I think you need to start looking at pure quality, Alderweireld told ESPN NL. What do big players do? What do quality players do? That is to be decisive at important moments, achieve your level. And that has not been happening all season.”

The former centre-back pointed directly at Romero and Van de Ven, expressing the view that their contribution has fallen short over an extended spell rather than in short dips of form. Alderweireld suggested such inconsistency from players signed for large transfer fees reflects a wider lack of quality throughout Tottenham’s current Premier League group.

Both Romero and Van de Ven have missed matches during this long winless stretch because of suspensions, disrupting Tottenham’s defensive stability, while Romero is reportedly sidelined for the rest of the season with a knee injury, further weakening Spurs as the Premier League relegation fight reaches its crucial final weeks.

Since joining Tottenham before the 2021-22 season, Romero has built up a significant disciplinary record in the Premier League, collecting four red cards, the most among defenders in that period, and 36 yellow cards, the second-highest total for players in defensive positions across the division.

Tottenham’s extended poor form is also notable in the club’s historical records, as this current 14-match winless league sequence is the second-longest run without victory in Spurs’ history, topped only by a 16-game spell between December 1934 and April 1935, further underlining the scale of the present Premier League slump.

{TABLE_1}

Alderweireld linked those statistics and absences to Tottenham’s broader problems, arguing that Romero’s style often crosses the line from aggressive to reckless, which has left the team exposed at crucial moments when composure was needed, especially during a difficult Premier League relegation battle.

“Players who were acquired for a lot of money but who nevertheless don’t deliver, and not in just one or two matches or a period, but throughout the whole season. You just have to conclude that they are not good enough in terms of quality. I look at Romero, I look at Van de Ven. They just aren’t reaching their level. Again, not for a period, but actually for an entire season. Then I also look at Romero, who gets red cards too often, doesn’t make the right decisions and therefore lets his team down.”

Spurs now turn attention to Brighton, where Roberto De Zerbi aims to defeat a former club after opening his Brighton tenure with a 1-0 defeat to Sunderland, and the match carries major importance for Tottenham’s Premier League survival hopes as well as for the reputations of Romero, Van de Ven and other senior players.