Tottenham's nosedive into the relegation zone has forced their fans to think the unthinkable.
Relative to financial security, sporting expectations and basically any other metric you could care to mention, this Tottenham season has more than a fair shout at being the worst by any team in English football history.
Spurs supporters have been ringing the alarm bells for months, but their distress signals had often fallen on deaf ears. With the business end of the season having arrived, rivals have now woken up to the club's plight, but, to continue to borrow Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor's analogy, many of them have only come to revel in watching the ship sink.
Did the club's downward trend start with the lack of spending that accompanied the stadium move? Mauricio Pochettino's sacking five months after the Champions League final defeat in 2019?
Something more recent perhaps: The series of ill-advised managerial appointments that started with José Mourinho and left them with Igor Tudor's 44-day reign? The behind-the-scenes upheaval highlighted by the Lewis family's ousting of Daniel Levy at the start of this season? The fact that most of their players are always injured? There's certainly plenty of blame to share around.
The most important thing now, however, is not to work out how all this misery started -- it's how it will end.
- How bad analytics built a Tottenham team that might get relegated
Why Tottenham will get relegated
What had once seemed like another lost season in the annals of Spurs' recent history, has turned into the worst in living memory.
It's reached the point where it's tough to envisage where Spurs might get the points that will save their season. They remain two points off of West Ham in 17th with just four games to go.
With Nottingham Forest and Leeds United sitting five and six points clear respectively of Spurs in the relegation zone, Tottenham's nearest rivals are West Ham -- whose form has seen a serious upturn in recent weeks, to the point that the Hammers have picked up 11 points from their last six games. Spurs, meanwhile, have only picked up five.
Roberto De Zerbi's team did get a crucial win against already relegated Wolverhampton Wanderers on April 25 but West Ham also beat Everton to keep the gap at two points.
After weeks of positive projections, the Opta supercomputer has seemingly turned its back on Spurs, now giving them a 58.72% chance of being relegated. By comparison, Opta gives their nearest relegation rivals West Ham a 38.03% chance of going down, while fellow strugglers Forest have now got just a 1.86% chance of relegation and Leeds United -- following their big win against Wolves on April 18 -- have a miniscule 1.28% chance of returning to the Championship.
- Ossie Ardiles calls for unity as Tottenham battle relegation
When Ange Postecoglou's Tottenham team started dropping like flies last season, it was largely put down to his famously intense training methods, but the trend has continued long after the Australian's summer exit from the club.
This year, it's not only been the frequency of the injuries that's been the problem, it's also their seriousness, their timing and the identity of the players who've suffered them.
Take Spurs' lack of attacking threat, for example -- their performances have been turgid for almost the whole campaign. Spurs amassed an xG of just 0.05 in a 1-0 home defeat by Chelsea in November which turned a sizeable portion of the Spurs fanbase against Frank. Their 4-1 away defeat to Arsenal two games later saw Frank's team produce a marginal improvement: 0.07xG.
The impact of James Maddison, who was back on the bench for Spurs' win over Wolves draw against Brighton, and Dejan Kulusevski's injuries on this figures is unquantifiable but the fact the creative duo haven't played a minute of football this season due to their respective knee injuries will not have helped matters at the attacking end of the pitch.
Now that Xavi Simons has shared their fate, Spurs are a team bereft of creativity.
Of all Spurs' first-team players that have been at the club for the entirety of the campaign, only one -- Mathys Tel -- has not missed a game through injury.
How much of that is bad luck and how much of it is poor squad planning is open to debate, but injuries have arguably been the biggest limiting factor on Spurs' hopes this term.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, only Chelsea (7) have received more red cards in the Premier League this season than Spurs (4).
- Tottenham's Pedro Porro rues injuries amid 'disaster' season
Why Tottenham won't get relegated
Despite all the doom and gloom, there is still some hope for Spurs fans to hold on to.
Chief among them is their apparent improvement under new head coach De Zerbi who appears the first Spurs manager this season able to get a tune out of the team.
He is helped by the objective difficulty of their remaining fixtures. They may have fluffed their lines in a big way against Crystal Palace and Forest and failed to hold on to a priceless lead against Brighton, but with matches to come against Leeds and Everton, there are opportunities for Spurs to pick up the points they need.
Forest, for example, face matches against Chelsea, Newcastle and Manchester United, while their main relegation rivals, West Ham, will still play Arsenal and Newcastle during the run-in.
Postecoglou's team finished 17th last year with 38 points. It was a campaign that saw a record-low points total (26) needed to avoid the drop.
This season, Spurs are likely to need between 36 and 38 points to survive -- two wins and a draw could be enough for Micky van de Ven and Co.
Which fixtures are most likely to decide the relegation battle?
May 9: Spurs vs. Leeds
May 10: West Ham vs. Arsenal
May 24: Spurs vs. Everton, Forest vs. Bournemouth, West Ham vs. Leeds
Information from ESPN's Global Sports Research contributed to this story