Marked for Conor Gallagher
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match3 Nov 2026
Tottenham march on in the cup
AFC Wimbledon are out and Tottenham go through, 3‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Mateus Fernandes takes the afternoon — 8.33
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Mateus Fernandes provided it, and the 8.33 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
No sign of nerves from Josh King at 19 — 7.88
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Josh King did not need any: 7.88, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market9 Nov 2026
Andrew Robertson wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Tottenham hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad9 Nov 2026
A quiet fortnight at Tottenham
With 8 players away on international duty the sessions are small and the manager can actually hear himself. It is the one break in the season, and it never quite feels like one.
The terraces9 Nov 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Marked 8.58 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Match7 Nov 2026
Beaten 0‑1, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
The dugout9 Nov 2026
No hiding place for Savinho
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Savinho, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match17 Oct 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Fulham, and it could have been more.
Squad19 Oct 2026
The match ball belongs to Mateo Retegui, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Destiny Udogie is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Ivan Toney was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
A performance of 9.39 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Market19 Oct 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Mykhaylo Mudryk has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Match17 Oct 2026
Fulham blown away early
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 3 times before the twentieth minute. Fulham tried to reorganise, Tottenham did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Market19 Oct 2026
“They were honest with me, and I would rather know.” Destiny Udogie has been informed he is not in the manager's thinking at Tottenham.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Lucas Bergvall is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad12 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Tottenham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
At 26 the improving is meant to be over, and it is not: 3 points better than a year ago. It happens to the ones who take the boring parts seriously.
Market12 Oct 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Dominic Solanke has his answer from Tottenham; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Tottenham are still strangers to each other
12 new signings in one window. Every one may be an upgrade and the side can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild the verdicts never mention.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market12 Oct 2026
The name of Sandro Tonali keeps appearing in other people's back pages. Tottenham say nothing, which says plenty.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Dominic Solanke trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
Looking ahead12 Oct 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Josh King’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Tottenham needing him to play as if none of it matters.