Tottenham travel to Leipzig on Tuesday needing to overturn a 1-0 first leg deficit to prevent adding an early Champions League exit to a season spiralling out of control.
Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Burnley stopped the rot of four consecutive defeats in all competitions that has seen Jose Mourinho’s men fall behind in the race for a top-four finish in the Premier League and eliminated from the FA Cup by bottom-of-the-table Norwich.
Failure to fight back in Germany will also halt the progress Spurs have made in the Champions League in recent years.
Under Mauricio Pochettino, Tottenham went further in the competition for each of the past three seasons, culminating in a rollercoaster run to the final last season.
Rather than using defeat in Madrid to Liverpool last June as a springboard to continue competing with the European elite, Spurs have unravelled.
Pochettino was sacked just three months into this season after five-and-a-half years in charge that transformed the club’s fortunes.
Rather than follow the template of Pochettino’s appointment with a young and forward-thinking coach like Leipzig’s Julian Nagelsmann, Spurs chairman Daniel Levy was wowed by Mourinho’s past.
The Portuguese has 25 trophies to his name, but the last of them came three years ago and recent spells at Chelsea and Manchester United did little to suggest he was the man to take Spurs forward.
So it has proved with Mourinho’s negativity contributing to the gloom around the club. After losing Harry Kane and Son Heung-min to injury, Mourinho has repeatedly stated the end of the season cannot come soon enough.
The 57-year-old is quick to bemoan his lack of resources at what is now the eighth richest club in the world, according to Deloitte’s Football Money League. However, he was scathing of Tottenham’s club record signing Tanguy Ndombele after hooking the French midfielder at half-time on Saturday.