Tottenham host Everton on Sunday in a Premier League home match that could decide whether the club stays in the top flight. Roberto De Zerbi, the manager, said Dominic Solanke and James Maddison are available for the fixture and that he must choose whether Solanke starts: "Solanke is available for tomorrow," he said. "We have to decide if he starts in the first 11 or not."
The stakes are narrow and absolute. Only one scenario can send Tottenham into the Championship on Sunday: Spurs would be relegated if they lose at home to Everton and West Ham beat Leeds at the London Stadium. Sky Sports News' Michael Bridge described the match as Spurs' biggest game in recent history, a framing that underlines how a single afternoon could reverse a season built around parade crowds and last-ditch survival.
This is the same club that won the Europa League a year ago and celebrated with more than 220,000 fans at the trophy parade, and the same club that finished 17th in the Premier League last season. Tottenham became the first side in top-flight history to lose 22 games in a 38-game season and not be relegated, a quirk of circumstance that leaves this campaign's finale heavy with consequence rather than routine.
De Zerbi arrived to steady the ship, but the season has been complicated. Tottenham lost key players at various points, including Dejan Kulusevski, James Maddison and Mohammed Kudus to injury, and Heung-Min Son left the club in the summer. Those absences magnified every result and turned selection decisions into decisive moments. On Friday, De Zerbi indicated some of those dilemmas have eased. He said: "Maddison is available." He added that Djed Spence, who had been out with a facial injury, was back in contention with a near-repeated assertion: "He's available, he's available," — a brisk emphasis on squad depth ahead of the final day.
That availability has an immediate texture. Solanke suffered a hamstring injury on 25 April in a 1-0 win against Wolves at Molineux and had been doubtful for the end of the season; De Zerbi's declaration that the striker is fit enough to be considered for the starting eleven rewrites the manager's options up front. Maddison, meanwhile, has returned from an ACL and has recently been used in short cameos off the bench, a cautious reintroduction that leaves De Zerbi weighing match sharpness against the need for game-changing quality.
There is friction between how Tottenham arrived at this point and what supporters expect. A year ago the club paraded a European trophy before 220,000 fans; this spring they face a relegation scenario that comes down to a single combination of results. The team is also locally judged for managerial fit: the supplementary coverage in recent weeks argued Thomas Frank was not the right fit for the club and even pointed to the West Ham loss in January as the moment Frank should have been sacked. Those judgments linger even as De Zerbi tries to focus the dressing room on the immediate task.
De Zerbi did not hide the rawness of recent moments when asked about refereeing headlines and on-field incidents. He said: "I think it was another situation bad for us because I think it was a red card for Delap, but I have to repeat, I have no time and energy to lose thinking about red card, yellow card - we move on thinking just on the game." It was a clipped refusal to let past grievances steer Sunday’s preparation — and a signal that selection and tactics will determine what follows.
The pragmatic conclusion is simple: De Zerbi’s choices on Sunday — whether to start Solanke, how to deploy Maddison and whether Spence returns — will matter more than any narrative about last season’s trophy or midseason calls for managerial change. If Tottenham avoid defeat at home they will not be relegated, regardless of results elsewhere; if they lose and West Ham win at the London Stadium, the club drops into the Championship. The decisive act now is selection, and De Zerbi will deliver that choice at 3pm on Sunday.
