Tottenham Hotspur go into this international break bottom of the Premier League, without a win in five matches and with only two Premier League goals to their name, both of them arriving in stoppage time of a defeat. It is, by any measure, the worst start to a top flight season the club has had. And yet, according to Fabrizio Romano, there is no managerial crisis meeting taking place behind the scenes. Roberto De Zerbi, appointed with real ambition just a few months ago, is being backed to work his way out of it.
That is a striking position for a Tottenham hierarchy that has not always been patient with managers in recent years. Daniel Levy’s board watched their side lose 3-2 at home to Aston Villa on Saturday, a result that dropped them into the relegation zone on goal difference, and the noise around De Zerbi’s position grew louder than at any point since he took the job. Romano’s reporting suggests the club understands exactly why results have not come, and is prepared to let the process continue rather than reach for the emergency cord.
A defeat that summed up the difficulty of the rebuild
The Villa match told the story of Tottenham’s season in miniature. Spurs were the better side for long spells, created the clearer chances, and still finished up beaten. Johan Manzambi put Villa ahead deep into first half stoppage time, and although Tottenham pushed hard for an equaliser, they were made to pay for their profligacy when Nicolas Jackson made it two just after the hour. A Mohammed Kudus finish that would have pulled Spurs level was chalked off by VAR in the 58th minute, with Andy Robertson judged to have been offside in the build up, and Emi Buendia added a third for Villa before Conor Gallagher and Jan Paul van Hecke scored twice in the final ten minutes to make the scoreline respectable.
Those two late goals were Tottenham’s first in open play this season, a statistic that says everything about how blunt this team has looked despite the money spent rebuilding it. De Zerbi did not hide from the responsibility afterwards. “We can’t lose this game in this way, absolutely,” he said. “We can’t concede the second goal.” Asked about the timing of the international break arriving now, of all moments, he admitted the situation was hard to read: “I don’t know if it’s right or not because it’s difficult to give an opinion.” It was the tone of a manager who knows the pressure is building but is not yet willing to publicly panic about it.
Big investment, nothing to show for it so far
Part of what makes this such an uncomfortable start is the scale of the rebuild De Zerbi was backed to lead. Tottenham brought in Sandro Tonali from Newcastle for around £100 million, paid roughly £85 million apiece for Savio from Manchester City and Mateus Fernandes from West Ham, and added Jan Paul van Hecke from Brighton for a further £52 million, alongside free transfers for Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka and loan deals for Mykhaylo Mudryk and Omar Marmoush. Gross spending ran to well over £200 million, though sales including Cristian Romero, Djed Spence and Luka Vuskovic brought the net outlay down closer to £53 million.
That is precisely the kind of statement window that ends careers quickly when results do not follow, and it is why the sack calls have started so early in De Zerbi’s tenure. Five games without a win, and only two points on the board, would ordinarily be enough to have a manager fearing for his job anywhere in the Premier League, let alone at a club with Tottenham’s recent history of losing patience.
Why the club is choosing patience over panic
According to Romano, the message from within Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has been consistent even as the results have not been. “Tottenham decided to back Roberto De Zerbi in the summer by trusting his ideas,” he reported, adding that “the message from Tottenham, as of today, remains a message of confidence in Roberto De Zerbi.” The framing from the club, as relayed by Romano, is that supporters and pundits alike are judging this rebuild against an unrealistic timeline. Spurs finished last season 17th, staying up only on the final day, and the argument from the boardroom is that turning that into a Champions League chasing side was never going to happen overnight simply because the club backed the manager financially in one window.
Whether that patience survives the return from the international break will depend heavily on results. Sitting bottom of the table with two points from five is not a position any club can defend indefinitely, however sound the underlying reasoning about long term rebuilding sounds in September. De Zerbi’s task now is to turn Tottenham’s evident quality in possession, visible even in defeat against Villa, into the kind of results that take the pressure off both him and the hierarchy that appointed him. Another winless outing when the league resumes would make it far harder for Levy’s board to keep repeating the same message of confidence.
For now, though, the calculation at Tottenham appears to be that changing manager again would only set the rebuild back further, not accelerate it. It is a bet that plenty of supporters will find easier to accept in principle than in practice while their team sits at the bottom of the Premier League table.
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