Tottenham Hotspur manager Roberto De Zerbi saved the club from relegation last season, yet he has been spared no quarter by the media to start the 2026/27 campaign. Even though he has actually done a great job of coaching Spurs and has changed their tactics to where they can truly dominate teams on the front foot, all everyone saw was the lack of results, the lack of goals, and Spurs being winless at the very bottom of the league table heading into the September and October international break - not to mention being eliminated in the Third Round of the League Cup.
But Spurs were the victims of some heroic goalkeeping, insane wonder goals, and just genuine terrible luck. They made some of their own luck, and De Zerbi's own transfer decision making yielded Spurs a suboptimal group of players to actually turn in the chances they were creating - and the chances themselves have not been clear cut with James Maddison still not healthy enough to start.
That being said, anyone who has actually watched every Tottenham game from start to finish will tell you that while De Zerbi has not been perfect, he is the last person to blame for the continued malaise at the club. And everyone knew, the moment De Zerbi was hired, that it would be a long, long process to rewrite Spurs, get them to play like a real big Premier League club again, and pull them out of back to back 17th placed finishes and near relegation in 2025/26.
Roberto De Zerbi has Tottenham playing great football
After watching his beloved Manchester United get played off the pitch and still not win despite a controversial red card to Rodrigo Bentancur (and nothing for that boorish instigator Luke Shaw), pundit Gary Neville even had to admit that Tottenham Hotspur are playing some great football.
Neville said on Sky Sports, via Hotspur Lane, “That’s the first time I’ve seen Tottenham live this season, and I think they’re a really good team. The patterns were good, their line was good, the compactness in the defence was good, the tempo in the passing was good, the wide players, Kudus and Savio, were a real threat.”
It's telling that Gary Neville admitted that this is the first time he's truly dug into watching a Tottenham game and that his impression was that they are "really good". He pretty much pointed out that Spurs are doing everything well from a tactical and organizational stand point, and that speaks to how well Roberto De Zerbi is doing. So if De Zerbi is making Neville a believer like this, Neville saying it out loud is a huge release of pressure from the media off the Italian manager's back.
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