Tottenham Hotspur are playing markedly better football in terms of their possession and being more positive in driving the ball up the pitch through the actual middle, but in terms of their actual results in the table, Spurs have not looked worse since the very doldrums of the end of the Thomas Frank era. Because even though Spurs are now outshooting and outpossessing their opponents under Roberto De Zerbi, they are last in the Premier League and winless in five at the September international break.
New Tottenham signing Andy Robertson was signed in part to help provide leadership to the club, but even in the Frank era last winter, Spurs wanted him to bring some winning spirit. Robertson is a two time Premier League winner and actually won the Champions League against Tottenham back when Liverpool survived them in the most boring Final of all time in 2019.
But the veteran left back has seen his best days behind him, and Liverpool were willing to lose him for free this summer after two bad seasons. Robertson has done little to change the fortunes of the club, but his observations on what is wrong can't be ignored either.
Tottenham are mentally fragile
Andy Robertson stated that he has noticed the Tottenham Hotspur players dropping their heads when they go down, and it echoes something Roberto De Zerbi said after the 3-2 loss to Aston Villa before the break about this team being mentally fragile.
The Scottish international said, via Hotspur Lane, “You just see certain moments, like the Liverpool game, we played so well there in moments, and then you get a goal against you, and it's like (heads down). And then we go back to 2-1, and all of a sudden it's chests out, and everyone's wanting the ball, and it's like, we need that all the time even if you go 1-0 down, or it's 0-0 late on."
Tottenham had this problem under Thomas Frank of mental fragility, and there were crucial players like Pedro Porro and Micky van de Ven who looked like shells of themselves last season under the old manager, with many wondering if they even wanted to play for Spurs- or football at all - so dire were things under Frank.
De Zerbi seemed to have solved all that when he had the players performing better and surviving relegation, but Robertson's observation and the winless start to the 2026/27 season has shown that De Zerbi hasn't actually fully solved the lack of belief in adversity within the DNA of this club.
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