How athletes genuinely tackle a Premier League relegation struggle

When engaged in a struggle against relegation, reaching the 30-game threshold signals that the end is near, and if your form is lacking, the pressure intensifies significantly.

I understand this feeling well: I faced relegation twice from the Premier League as a player with Queens Park Rangers in 2013 and 2015, and I was also part of the squad that avoided relegation in 2012, so I have firsthand experience of the fight for survival during the closing months of a season.

Players will hold onto hope, but as time goes on and results are unfavorable, that hope diminishes, revealing the harsh truths of the sport. Eventually, you may reach a point where you question whether your last victory of the season has already occurred. It’s possible that one of the teams in the relegation battle may not secure another win this season. You can only hope that team is not yours.

If we acknowledge that Wolves and Burnley find themselves in a dire situation at the bottom of the Premier League, there are four teams—West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur, Nottingham Forest, and Leeds United—who are engaged in a contest to evade the third and final relegation spot, each with seven matches remaining to ensure another team faces relegation.

Currently, they all possess hope because there are still points available, but they will also be monitoring the fixture schedules of their competitors, whether those matches occur before or after their own, and it is inevitable to speculate on how games will unfold and the implications those results will have on their own team.

This weekend exemplifies how these scenarios can occupy the minds of players at the lower end of the table. West Ham, currently in the third-bottom position, will host Wolves, knowing that a victory would elevate them above Spurs before Roberto De Zerbi’s tenure as manager commences away at Sunderland on Sunday.

The stakes of Friday’s match are significant due to the cascading effects that will follow any outcome. Should West Ham secure a win, Spurs would suddenly find themselves in a relegation position, having not won a league match since December. They will face Sunderland, who boast a strong home record, fully aware that they must win to escape the relegation zone.

Conversely, if West Ham fails to defeat last-placed Wolves, the pressure on Spurs will lessen momentarily. However, that relief is short-lived, as the Spurs players will soon recognize the importance of securing a win at Sunderland, introducing a different kind of pressure—the pressure that arises from opportunity rather than necessity.

play2:05Burley: De Zerbi needs to focus on fight, not football at Spurs

Craig Burley and Steve Nicol respond to Roberto De Zerbi’s appointment at Tottenham.

It is a challenging situation. At times, you can become detached, and if a victory merely allows you to remain afloat, the pressure can become overwhelming for some. I suspect that none of the Spurs players will watch West Ham’s match on Friday, but if they receive messages from friends indicating that West Ham is losing or the score remains level at 80 minutes, they will likely turn on the TV to seek a morale boost and reaffirm their belief in survival.

This scenario is akin to what one might expect: there will be a sense of anxiety, with some players claiming they cannot focus. Others will attempt to maintain a sense of composure, insisting that the game on TV is irrelevant, that it’s “in our own hands anyway.” Yet, it does matter. Any player who states, “I don’t pay attention to the league table. I just concentrate on our performance,” is somewhat disappointing, as I would prefer someone to acknowledge the emotional weight of their current situation.

All clubs involved in the relegation battle are seeking a spark that can translate into positive momentum to steer them away from danger. However, none of the four teams striving to avoid relegation are currently experiencing any form of momentum.

Spurs have yet to win a league match in 2026—an astonishing statistic—while Leeds have gone six league games without a victory. Forest’s recent win against Spurs marked their first victory in eight matches, and West Ham, despite discussions of a revival under manager Nuno Espirito Santo, have secured only one win in their last six league games and remain in the bottom three.

During our survival campaign at QPR in 2012, our turning point came with the January acquisition of former Liverpool striker Djibril Cisse. He was a relentless goal scorer, netting six times in eight league matches for us, including an 89th-minute winner against Stoke in the penultimate game that lifted us out of the bottom three heading into the final weekend of the season and our notable match against Manchester City.

We triumphed over Liverpool, Arsenal, and Spurs at home in the final ten matches of the season, which allowed us to remain in the league, finishing a point clear of the relegation zone.

However, we did not replicate that success the following year. We ended up at the bottom, and by late February, it was evident that we were in a predicament we could not escape, failing to win any of our last nine matches.

That is when hope dissipates: you reach a stage where a gap forms between you and the other teams you are supposed to be competing against, and even a victory fails to make a difference. Our season was epitomized by a match against Reading in April, where both teams needed a win to keep their survival hopes alive. We ended in a 0-0 draw, and both teams were relegated.

West Ham, Spurs, Forest, and Leeds are not yet doomed. They are currently in a mini-league where three of them will succeed. It is a matter of perspective—the chances of relegation are relatively low.

Conditions can shift rapidly at this stage of the season. If Forest and Leeds secure victories this weekend while West Ham and Spurs do not, the separation will become apparent, narrowing it down to two teams in genuine jeopardy.

The players are the ones who feel the pressure most acutely: the anxiety, the stress, and, above all, the hope.

Nedum Onuoha was speaking to ESPN senior writer Mark Ogden