Champions League 2018/19: 4 big clubs who must win or face elimination from group stages

#1 Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham Hotspur would be banking on Harry Kane to fire them to victory

The nearly men for so long in the Premier League – after their 2010 fairytale run in the UCL, Spurs finally cracked into the top four fully in 2015, and since then, they’ve not looked back, securing Champions League qualification every year since then.

They have however struggled to prove themselves among Europe’s elites, but impressively topped a group also containing seasoned campaigners Real Madrid and Dortmund, before falling to Juventus in the round of 16 in heartbreaking fashion.

Tottenham were expected to build on that and mount a serious assault on the latter stages this season, but they have thus far gone horribly off script.

Two losses to Inter Milan and Barcelona in their opening two matches of the season left them hanging precariously on the edge, but they were handed a lifeline, as the placement of the fixtures meant they faced perceived weak link in the group PSV in doubleheaders on matchday 3 and 4.

They travelled to Eindhoven on matchday 3 with the knowledge that anything other than victory would effectively rule them out of qualification, and looked on course to achieve that, but for a loss in concentration in the final minutes which allowed PSV to equalize (much like it was with Inter Milan on the opening day).

That stalemate leaves Tottenham in the position of having a must-win fixture at Wembley, as a failure to do so could see them eliminated as early as tonight depending on the outcome of the Inter Milan Barcelona match.