Tottenham chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has admitted it would be “irresponsible” for the club not to plan for life in the Championship this season.
Spurs finished 17th in consecutive seasons in the Premier League and only survived relegation last campaign thanks to a win over Everton on the final day.
It was a miserable time for the north Londoners last time out, with the club going through three managers in Thomas Frank, Igor Tudor and Roberto De Zerbi.
Venkatesham says the club has contingency plans if they are relegated – although he says the “traumatic” period has brought everyone at the club closer together.
Speaking on The Sports Agents podcast, he said: “You know, it’s been really tough. A really, really, really tough time for the club. Yeah, you have to. [prepare for relegation]. I mean you can’t. I mean, it would be irresponsible not to implement this plan…
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“Sometimes going through a traumatic event like we had last season shuts people down a little bit and also puts a little more fire in everyone’s belly to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.”
The Spurs boss also touched on the sacking of Frank, who was sacked in February after less than eight months in charge.
The Dane has overseen a miserable run of just two league wins in 17 matches, but Venkatesham says Frank is a complete gentleman.
He added: “It’s really hard because you’re dealing with people. Frankly, Igor [Tudor] I haven’t been a coach for a long time, but Thomas, we’ve worked really, really closely together, we’ve been through some really tough times.
“And listen, you both know, Thomas. He’s a fantastic man. I kind of, you know, want to respect the privacy of talking to Thomas. But I can say he was every bit the gentleman you’d think he was.”
Having almost suffered relegation last season, Spurs were looking to improve the squad in the summer to arm De Zerbi with a squad capable of challenging at the top of the table.
They spent nearly £400m on players, including Mateus Fernandes – and Venkatesham has lifted the lid on the club’s ambition.
He added: “Everyone was together, we wanted to strengthen that position and then everyone joined Mateus. [Fernandes] was absolutely the number one target.
“Honestly, we accomplished more than we thought we would, and that was really because we were able to land a lot of our number one goals. Because if we didn’t get our number one goals, we wouldn’t have settled.”
Despite the prodigious spending spree, Spurs made a difficult start to the season and fell to the bottom of the table after six matches.
They have since recorded three consecutive league wins to climb the table, but Venkatesham admitted it was ‘disappointing’ to see them struggle at the start of the season.
He said: “The start of the season, what can I say? So it was nerve-wracking. I wasn’t worried, but I was definitely disappointed…
“Did we think we were going to make so many changes and everything would be fixed right away? Of course we didn’t. But did we think we were going to move around the league position we were in during the international break? Of course we didn’t.”
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