Spurs Premier League Titles

Tottenham Hotspur have never won the Premier League. Their last English top-flight title came in 1960-1961, part of the club’s famous double under Bill Nicholson, more than three decades before the old First Division was rebranded and restructured into the Premier League in 1992. In the years since, Spurs have come close exactly once and spent significantly more of their time demonstrating why ‘Spursy’ became football shorthand for finding a new way to fall short.

This page covers Tottenham’s Premier League record specifically. It looks at the near misses, as well as at the seasons that went the other way entirely. Their FA Cup, League Cup and European exploits are explored elsewhere on this site.

Premier League Wins

Tottenham are yet to win the Premier League. Their best finish came in 2016-2017, when Mauricio Pochettino’s side finished second, seven points behind eventual champions Chelsea. It remains the closest they have come in the competition’s history. The full story of that season, and the other campaigns that came close, is below.

Near Misses & Second-Place Finishes

Spurs’ history of nearly-but-not-quite has produced four genuinely strong Premier League campaigns, each falling short in a different way. Two came within touching distance of the title itself, whilst the other two were fights for a top-four place that went down to the final weeks of the season.

Spurs’ Best-Ever Finish (2016-2017)

Pochettino’s side finished second in 2016-2017 with 86 points, racking up 26 wins, eight draws and only four defeats. It is still Tottenham’s best Premier League return by every meaningful measure. Harry Kane finished as the division’s top scorer with 35 goals, whilst the team went unbeaten at White Hart Lane all season. Antonio Conte’s Chelsea were simply better, winning the title by seven points. It remains the only time Tottenham have finished as Premier League runners-up.

Third in a Two-Horse Race (2015-2016)

The previous season had actually brought Spurs closer to an outright title challenge, even though they finished one place lower than when they missed out to Chelsea. Pochettino’s young side led the table into the spring of 2015-2016 and went to Chelsea on the second of May, needing a win to keep the pressure on an unfancied Leicester City side.

Tottenham led 2-0 through Harry Kane and Son Heung-min before Chelsea, with nothing much left to play for themselves, fought back to draw 2-2 in a match so ill-tempered it became known as ‘The Battle of the Bridge’. The draw handed Leicester the title, having started the season with odds of 5,000/1, whilst Spurs slipped to third behind Arsenal. It was their closest look at an actual championship race since 1961.

Champions League Under ‘Arry (2009-2010)

Under Harry Redknapp, Tottenham finished fourth in the 2009-2010 campaign to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history. It went down to the final weeks of the season and was more or less settled when Peter Crouch headed a late winner away at Manchester City, the side competing directly with Spurs for the last Champions League place. Redknapp was named the Premier League’s Manager of the Season for his achievement.

Winning a Club Record Points Total (2012-2013)

Three years later and Tottenham set what was then a club record Premier League points total, finishing on 72 points in 2012-2013. That was a mark that they would not beat until 2016-2017. It still wasn’t enough. Arsenal overturned a seven-point gap in the final ten matches of the season to pip Spurs to fourth place by a single point, ensuring that ‘St Totteringham’s Day’, the self-explanatory date each season when Arsenal guarantee finishing above their rivals, arrived on schedule yet again.

Disasters & Upsets

Tottenham have never been relegated from the Premier League and have dropped out of the top-flight only once in their history, way back in 1977. That has not stopped them producing some spectacular capitulations along the way, however.

The Nervy ‘90s

Under Ossie Ardiles in the 1993-1994 Premier League campaign, Spurs put together a seven-match losing streak. That was the longest such run suffered by any club in the division that season, meaning that they spent a nervy run-in looking over their shoulder at the relegation zone. They eventually finished 15th, clear of any real danger by the end, but it was an early reminder that a club with Tottenham’s history was not automatically exempt from a proper relegation fright.

They needed reminding again a few years later. Gerry Francis resigned in the November of 1997, with Spurs sitting in the relegation zone. It took a late rally under his replacement, the little-known Swiss coach Christian Gross, to drag them up to 14th by the time that May rolled around, meaning that they were safe, but had done their best not to be.

Lasagne-Gate

Nothing sums up Tottenham’s Premier League luck quite like the seventh of May 2006. Needing only to match Arsenal’s result at West Ham on the final day to secure Champions League qualification for the first time since 1961-1962, ten members of the Spurs squad were struck down by illness after eating a lasagne at their hotel the night before.

The Premier League refused to delay kick-off, resulting in a 2-1 loss for Spurs whilst Arsenal won, meaning that the club finished fifth instead of fourth. Tests later showed the food itself was clear and the real culprit was norovirus rather than the hotel’s Italian dish, but by then the name had already stuck. It remains the byword for a Tottenham near miss going wrong in the most Tottenham way possible.

Big Ange

The most recent entry needed two seasons to build up to. Under Ange Postecoglou in 2024-2025, Tottenham lost 22 league games, which was a club record, and finished 17th. That was their lowest placing of the Premier League era and might well have resulted in the Australian losing his job if not for his achievements elsewhere. That’s because, along the way, they also won the Europa League, beating Manchester United in the final to end a 17-year wait for a trophy.

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It made for one of the oddest seasons English football has produced, with a European triumph being delivered by a team that spent most of its Saturdays losing. Postecoglou was sacked within weeks of lifting the trophy, with Thomas Frank installed in his stead. Results in the league barely improved the following year, resulting in Spurs finishing 17th again in 2025-2026, surviving by finishing two points above West Ham after a run of six straight defeats and a 15-match run without a win, their closest brush with relegation since they last went down, in 1977.

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