In this week’s Royal Blue column, Joe Thomas writes that the roles played by the Everton fanbase and captain Seamus Coleman were hugely significant in the club’s survival fights and that Tottenham Hotspur may need to find similar inspirations to save their top flight status
05:00, 07 Mar 2026
A dog is held high above the crowds as supporters gather outside Goodison Park to welcome the arrival of the team coaches ahead of the match between Everton and Chelsea on May 1, 2022. Photo by Paul ELLIS / AFP) (Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images
The car crash Tottenham Hotspur are hurtling into is one Everton supporters know all too well. A talented squad, wracked by injury and undermined by instability off-the-pitch, is buckling under the pressure on it and, all of a sudden, the momentum is only taking the team in one direction.
That the club might be ‘too big’ or the team ‘too good’ to go down are arguments that will not hold much water in the coming weeks. Spurs will have to save themselves if they are to avoid a final day reckoning when Everton visit north London for what could be a game of epic consequences.
The Blues, of course, have had too many of those in recent years – twice the battle for survival required wins in the final week of the season. Thank goodness those days are over.
Everton made it through those dark moments due to several factors. Whether Tottenham can get out of their mess may now be down to whether they can emulate them.
A good place to start would be to acknowledge the situation is still salvageable. Spurs are still above the relegation places and with nine games to go they have time on their side.
It was at this stage in 2022 when the Blues suffered the damaging 3-2 loss at Burnley that consigned them to a relegation dogfight with nine matches to go. The turning point in that battle did not come until May 1, when a 1-0 win over Chelsea, inspired by the first of the coach welcomes that would help so much in the weeks and years to come and Jordan Pickford’s heroics from Cesar Azpilicueta and Antonio Rudiger, sealed the win that changed the course of that season.
The following year, under Sean Dyche, the improbable thrashing of Brighton & Hove Albion on the south coast came one week later – on May 8. That changed Everton’s destiny and moved the club’s fate into its own hands. So there is time for Tottenham to regather and find a way to ultimately finish above at least one of Leeds United, Nottingham Forest and West Ham United.
Key in both of those run-ins for Everton was the support of the fans. The cameras picked up Spurs supporters streaming out en masse at half-time as they trailed 3-1 to Crystal Palace on Thursday night. Those fans have every right to question why their club has ended up in this mess and protests over the running of Spurs are being planned around upcoming games. In both 2022 and 2023 there was serious, legitimate discontent over how the Blues were being run. What the Blues fanbase, often managed by the 1878s, did so well was separate the frustration with those in the boardroom from their desire to support their players and essentially run parallel campaigns.
The ability to split their energy so successfully was crucial. Those player welcomes against Chelsea and Crystal Palace and the crowds outside Finch Farm when the squad left the training ground for Leicester City the weekend after the Chelsea win were huge. They were the three wins that saved Everton.
The atmosphere generated inside stadiums up and down the country was phenomenal, with the celebrations over the win at Leicester going viral and taking grip of US sports coverage. If Spurs supporters can find a way to provide scrutiny of the club hierarchy without diminishing the support levels for their players when they are on the pitch, particularly in their wonderful new stadium, they will have a strong chance of survival.
What the Bluesalso had through this period was a talisman who was able to pull together the players and the supporters in a way that fuelled and encouraged each side. Countless managers have spoken of the value of club captain Seamus Coleman at Everton and his influence in the relegation fights under Frank Lampard and Sean Dyche was integral.
Coleman has often spoken of living in Liverpool and the insight that provides him as he comes across Blues every day. His blood runs Royal Blue and Moyes’ insistence that he should have a future at the club whether or not he continues his playing career beyond the summer is just one strand of evidence in the overwhelming case that can be made to argue that he ‘gets Everton’.
The Irishman found ways to pull the dressing room and the stands together. Even when he was unable to help on the pitch through injury he was a galvanising figure – remember him fist-pumping the away end at Leicester as he was being stretchered off with a serious knee injury in that six-pointer in May 2023?
What Tottenham need now is a figure who can inspire that unity, one who the supporters and the players can get behind. That is even more important given the instability in the dugout, with interim manager Igor Tudor under intense pressure.
Dominic Solanke, who gave Spurs the lead against Palace, appeared to understand the gravity of the situation after the game as he said: “We obviously need to realise the position that we are in. We know it’s been so difficult this season with the injuries, but we can’t change that now. Us players on the pitch need to take responsibility and ultimately change it as soon as possible.”
One important factor both sides do have in common is Brazilian forward Richarlison. He played through injury to help save Everton under Lampard, his match-winner in that defining victory over Chelsea sparking his iconic flare celebration.
The 28-year-old is a player who knows what it takes to get over the line in a mess like this and that experience should be drawn upon.