The phrase “too good to go down” is being tested like never before, with several big clubs in Europe at risk of suffering relegation this season.
Any one of these teams going down would be fairly seismic, but there is a very real possibility that they all do so.
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Five big clubs in grave danger of relegation this season:
Spurs
Perhaps we should have seen this coming given Tottenham Hotspur finished 17th last year, but there was no way of predicting them being as bad as they have been. After all, they tanked in the Premier League to focus on the UEFA Europa League, which they won, as the bottom three had no chance of staying up.
This season has been a much different story. Spurs have played poorly throughout the campaign, with Thomas Frank unable to find a winning formula before being sacked. His successor, Igor Tudor, has fared even worse and the side haven’t won a league game in 2026. It’s gotten to the point where the club are seriously considering another new hire to drag them out of this mess.
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Exactly one month ago I wrote that Tottenham don’t look like they’re capable of winning a game, but their superior talent and the four-point gap should be enough to keep them safe. Only the first half of that assessment is looking accurate right now and, following a 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest on Sunday, just one point separates them from an unthinkable relegation to the Championship.
Read – Premier League clubs who have won a major trophy more recently than Arsenal
Sevilla
The gradual backsliding of Sevilla draws parallels with that of Spurs’ fall from grace. Regular top four finishes and success in Europe has given way to poor domestic results thanks to bad squad planning, plunging them into back-to-back relegation battles.
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Los Blanquirrojos just barely avoided the drop last season, finishing one point above the trap door despite losing three of their final four matches. They are currently just three points above water having lost almost half of their league games.
The bottom five have all won more recently than Sevilla, who are currently on a four-game winless run which has resulted in the sacking of manager Matias Almeyda. Their next fixture sees them face bottom dwellers Real Oviedo in a must-win game.
Fiorentina
The fall of Fiorentina has come swiftly and unexpectedly given they had solidified their place in the top half of Serie A in recent years. They’ve finished inside the top eight in each of the last four seasons and reached three finals – two in the UEFA Conference League and one in the Coppa Italia – although they lost all of them.
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This season has been a struggle for La Viola, who are just two points above Jamie Vardy’s Cremonese in 17th and Lecce in 18th. A quick glance at the underlying stats suggest they have been desperately unlucky, however. They boast the fifth-best expected goals tally in the division, but have massively underperformed in front of goal.
With just one defeat in their last seven league matches, including a draw with leaders Inter Milan, Fiorentina are moving in the right direction. They should be fine, but a huge fight for survival lies ahead.
Wolfsburg
Things are looking exceedingly grim for Wolfsburg right now. They sit second from bottom, three points from safety and without a win in over two months.
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Ironically, their last victory came against St. Pauli, the team above them in the table. As it stands, they would join Heidenheim in going down to the second tier next season. But even if they catch St. Pauli, they would still need to navigate a relegation/promotion play-off against a team from the 2. Bundesliga.
FC Copenhagen
Although they don’t have the profile of the other clubs on this list, FC Copenhagen are the biggest, most successful club in Denmark and have qualified for Europe in all but one year of their existence. Indeed, they competed in this season’s UEFA Champions League league phase after winning the Danish Superliga last year, their third title in four years.
And yet, they now find themselves just six points above the dropzone without a league win since November. That stat is not as bleak as it reads, as the league took its winter break between December and February, but their results over the past few months have been confounding. Their only victories have come in the Danish Cup, of which they have reached the final, and against Villarreal and Kairat Almaty in the Champions League.
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The Lions have lost five out of six matches since the league resumed, drawing the other one. They are on a downward trajectory, while the teams below them have been picking up points in recent weeks. Their saving grace might be the fact that five other teams are in the relegation battle and their six-point buffer may be enough for them to survive, but with eight games to go anything can happen.
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