Roberto De Zerbi is the man charged with saving Tottenham Hotspur from relegation. But can he teach his new squad his football effectively in a very short space of time?
It’s a huge gamble, but the stakes could scarcely be higher.
Tottenham are in freefall. They haven’t won a Premier League game since December, and as a result, they are staring at the increasingly real prospect of relegation to the second tier of English football for the first time since 1977.
All season, it has been assumed – even, seemingly, and unforgivably, by the club’s hierarchy – that last season’s Europa League winners were too good to go down. But the last few months have proved that wrong beyond all doubt. A cushion to the drop zone of 12 points on 1 January has shrunk to just one point with seven games of the season remaining and, with it, the threat of relegation has skyrocketed.
The financial and reputational damage of demotion to the Championship for a club who have played in Europe in 18 of the past 20 seasons and were in the Champions League final only seven years ago would be catastrophic. They have to get this next move right.
Six Things De Zerbi Must Do
Premier LeagueSix Things Roberto De Zerbi Needs to Do to Save Tottenham
2 days ago Ali TweedaleThe decision has been made that Roberto De Zerbi is the man they need. Presumably based on calculations as to how much Spurs stand to lose if they do go down, the club have thrown (a lot of) money at the situation and bowed to the Italian’s demands of a five-year contract. It will make him one of the Premier League’s highest-paid managers.
Spurs only really wanted a firefighter until the end of the season, when they hoped to reassess their options, but De Zerbi wasn’t interested and demanded a long-term deal, and so this is the situation Tottenham now find themselves in.
In reality, all that really matters to the club is the next seven games. If De Zerbi is only in charge until the end of the season but he keeps Spurs up, nobody will mind if they have to pay him for the full length of his contract. It won’t be ideal, but relegation is a far, far worse scenario.
So, De Zerbi is the man charged with saving Spurs’ ever-present Premier League status. The big question is, then: can he do it?
There are doubts among sections of the Spurs fanbase about the Italian as a person as well as his combustible personality, which inevitably leads to problems wherever he goes. But there can be almost no questioning his ability as a manager, and that is what we’re here to focus on.
De Zerbi turned a very good Brighton team into an exceptional one, guiding them to a sixth-place finish in his first season despite only taking over in September and therefore not having a pre-season to prepare with his new players.
The concern at Tottenham – from a footballing perspective – is just how much of a jump De Zerbi’s possession-heavy, press-baiting, short-passing game is from the long-ball football that came before it.
Spurs have to learn on the job; they have no time to waste and need results immediately. De Zerbi’s failure to win any of his first five games in charge of Brighton won’t fill Spurs fans with much confidence, although he did win four of his first five at Marseille, whom he joined in summer 2024.
There is more similarity between the situations at Spurs and Brighton than Marseille, though. At Brighton, he also arrived mid-season, and it was also in the Premier League. The difference, though, is that there was some continuity with the style of play of the manager who came before him at Brighton in Graham Potter.
All season under Thomas Frank and then Igor Tudor, this Tottenham team have been playing a defence-first, possession-light game based around long-ball football and making the most of set-pieces. That could barely be further from De Zerbi’s ideals.
Spurs rank 11th in the Premier League this season for average possession (49.6%), and have played 12.2% of their passes long, which is also the 11th highest. They rank 14th for progressive passes – successful open-play passes in the attacking two-thirds of the pitch that move the ball at least 25% closer towards the opposition’s goal – with just 19.3 per game.
The north London derby against Arsenal was a painful showcase of their lack of penetration in possession. Spurs completed just seven progressive passes in that game – only six teams have had fewer in a Premier League game this season, and one of them was Spurs at the Emirates back in November (six).
Their inability to play through the thirds has led to huge problems in chance creation. They rank 15th in the Premier League this season for open-play expected goals (21.1 xG in 31 games), while only Leeds (35.1%) have scored a higher proportion of their goals from set-pieces than Spurs (35.0%). To say the tactic has been to get it forward as quickly as possible and then just see what happens is simplifying things, but only slightly.
The football Brighton played under De Zerbi was very, very different. Their game was based around drawing the opposition out with a daring commitment to keeping hold of the ball, even in risky areas very close to their own goal.
Over his Brighton spell, from September 2022 to the end of the following season (2023-24), De Zerbi’s Brighton led the Premier League for passes ending in their own defensive third of the pitch, with 159.8 per game – which was at least 12 more per game than any other team – and passes ending in their own penalty area, with 42.5 per game. He likes goal-kicks taken short and risks taken to try and keep hold of the ball to build through the thirds.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise – and won’t breed a great deal of confidence in Spurs fans scarred by watching Radu Dragusin try to play out under Ange Postecoglou – that this football led to mistakes.
From the date De Zerbi took over at Brighton until the end of his first season, only three teams saw their possession turned over within 40 metres of their own goal (high turnovers) more often in Premier League games than Brighton (288), while only Chelsea, who were having their worst season in recent memory, conceded more high turnovers that lead to an opposition shot (53) than Brighton (48).
De Zerbi insisted his players stuck to their guns playing his way, though. Over his almost two Premier League seasons with Brighton, only City (1,585) strung together sequences of 10+ passes more times than his side (1,256), while only City averaged more passes per sequence (5.4) than them (4.6).
Similarly, only City, Burnley and Wolves attacked up the pitch at a slower pace than Brighton (1.60 metres per second), who could sometimes be accused of overplaying.
Yet this wasn’t just slow, pointless and placid possession. There was purpose to it, and they kept the ball high up the pitch.
It was incredibly effective going forwards, too. From a 4-0 win over West Ham in March 2023 onwards, Brighton embarked on a 32-game run of scoring in every game. It remains the sixth-longest scoring streak in Premier League history.
They pressed high consistently, with only Liverpool (9.6) averaging a lower rate of opposition passes allowed per defensive action (PPDA) than Brighton (10.5) during De Zerbi’s reign. It was a fruitful press as well, with Brighton ranking sixth for high turnovers (626) and fourth for shot-ending high turnovers (115).
However, his attack-minded approach sometimes verged on the cavalier, and they left themselves too open too often. In De Zerbi’s time at the club, they conceded more goals from opposition counter-attacks (15) than any other side, while only Liverpool (57) faced more shots on the break than them (51).
During their aforementioned run of scoring in 32 consecutive games, they also conceded in 20 games in a row. Of the 32 games in that run, they only won 15.
Sound familiar? An unflinching commitment to possession football, a high press, and both scoring and conceding a lot of goals. There are more than a few similarities between De Zerbi’s football and that of Postecoglou.
Many of the players from the Postecoglou era remain, and might be able to pick up De Zerbi’s football relatively quickly. However, it is an enormous stylistic leap from the football they’ve played this season under Frank and Tudor, and also from the football they played on the way to Europa League glory last season under Postecoglou. The Australian had long left his favoured game in the past by then, meaning it has been well over a year since any of the Spurs squad played anything like Ange- or De-Zerbi-ball.
Ithiel Piñero / Data AnalystThat said, while De Zerbi wants his teams to play a certain way, he will surely recognise that this isn’t the time for idealism and the perfect brand of football. It’s a time for winning games.
He will also be aware that the Premier League has changed since he was there. It is more transitional – something that Pep Guardiola has acknowledged and reflected in the football his Manchester City side play – and there is a greater focus on direct football and transitions. Spurs used counter-attacks effectively under Postecoglou and may need to channel more of that energy.
Tottenham also have to remember that they are not yet a lost cause. They are on their longest ever run without a Premier League win, and have been utterly hopeless in many of those games, but there still is a great deal of quality in their squad and they are welcoming important players back from injury.
De Zerbi has a massive job, and the players face a huge challenge to learn to play this new brand of football immediately. If it works, though, it could be enough to get them out of trouble and it might just be a little exciting, too.
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What is Roberto De Zerbi’s Style of Play and Can Tottenham Learn It Quickly? Opta Analyst.
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