Roberto De Zerbi sack: Tottenham make call after 18-year low

Tottenham Hotspur will not sack Roberto De Zerbi, with the club’s hierarchy understood to be convinced he is the right man to turn around a disastrous start to the season. The Italian keeps his job despite a painful 18-year low, with Spurs bottom of the Premier League on two points from five games after Saturday’s 3-2 home defeat to Aston Villa.

Tottenham spent more than £300million on new players in the summer transfer window, bringing in the likes of Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes among others, and were expected at least to challenge for a top-four finish. Spurs were among Europe’s biggest spenders during the summer after only just surviving last season, but that investment has yet to produce the results the club wanted. Instead they have taken two points from five Premier League matches, with three defeats and two draws, and they head into a three-week international break at the foot of the table.

There was no shortage of territory or chances against Villa. The visitors went 3-0 up when Emi Buendia’s rocket made it three on 79 minutes, and although the hosts scored two late goals, their first league goals of the campaign, it was too little, too late. Spurs finished the match with 64 per cent possession, 20 shots, three big chances, 497 passes and 11 corners, a set of numbers that should never end in defeat. One report argued that Villa going 3-0 up against those statistics was representative of the North London club right now.

The wider picture is grim. One report describes this as Tottenham’s worst start to a league season after five games, with their two points and minus six goal difference sitting below the 2008/09 campaign, when they also had two points at this stage but a goal difference of minus three. Juande Ramos was sacked that October and replaced by Harry Redknapp. It is the first time in 18 years, and since that season, that Spurs have been bottom of the pile after five matches.

De Zerbi, 47, took over late last season with the club in serious danger of relegation and helped rescue them from the drop before being backed heavily in the summer. He has won just four of his 14 matches in charge, a win percentage of 28.57 per cent, and he has been strikingly candid about the scale of the problem. “In my career, 14 years as a coach, I’ve never seen one team like us. So fragile, so inconsistent,” he said after the Villa defeat.

Speculation about a Roberto De Zerbi sack has grown, yet TEAMtalk reported that the club are not looking at alternatives and have no plans to make a change during the international break. The manager is understood to be hugely frustrated with the performances of his players, and the hierarchy are said to share that frustration while believing the issue lies with the squad rather than the coach. The belief inside the club is that the project was always going to need time, particularly given the scale of the squad changes made in the summer. The expectation is that De Zerbi will use the three-week period to work with his players and address the weaknesses behind the poor start. One source told TEAMtalk, “There is nobody better than Roberto to turn this around.” The same source added, “He is very much still the man for Tottenham.”

Fabrizio Romano, speaking on his YouTube channel in comments reported by Football365, said the message from the club as of today remains one of confidence. “I’m told that Tottenham still believe in the manager. I’m told Tottenham knew it was going to take time,” Romano said. He added, “Tottenham knew it was going to be a process and it can not always be fast.” He also pointed to the starting point of the project, after Spurs survived on the final day of last season. “It’s not a switch you make from 17th in the league, saving from relegation in the final game of the season, to Champions League spots just because you spend big money,” he said.

Plenty of observers agree with that reading. The journalist Henry Winter, who has 1.1million followers on X, posted on September 20 that the inquests into De Zerbi’s work were premature. “Ridiculously premature inquests into Roberto De Zerbi’s management at Tottenham Hotspur,” he wrote. “He’s been in charge for only 14 games, rescued Spurs last season, came in, organised, galvanised and kept them up.” Winter did acknowledge that De Zerbi gets emotional in times of stress and must guard against some of his public outbursts about the team, and he described “Fragile” as a heavy word that leaps into headlines. His wider point was that a change of manager would set the club back. “Turning Spurs around is a long-term job. RDZ deserves time to attempt it,” he added.

Not everyone is so patient. A report on the Yahoo Sports site argued that the sack may be the only option for those in the boardroom, citing the scale of the summer outlay and the availability of Eddie Howe, and noted that the international break offers a chance to make a change. For now, though, the club’s position is unchanged, and the manager under pressure has been handed time rather than a farewell.