Tottenham Hotspur star center back Micky van de Ven is one of the most talented players in the Premier League in his position, but Spurs fans did not see the real best version of the Dutch international for much of the 2025/26 season.
Like so many players at Tottenham over the last year, Van de Ven was out of confidence and set up to fail by Thomas Frank, who nearly got Spurs relegated and is the consensus worst manager in the club's history.
Van de Ven, Pedro Porro, and other key Tottenham players saw their stocks boost significantly under Roberto De Zerbi, who had Tottenham playing much more positive football on the whole as a club and had these players playing at their best level not long after looking like train wrecks under Frank.
Tottenham will actually try to win games
There remains no love lost for Frank going into a full, fresh 2026/27 Premier League season under De Zerbi, and recently, Van de Ven spoke to reporters about how much better things are going to be next year under the Italian manager.
The star center back said of De Zerbi, via Hotspur Lane, “It’s going to be different compared to the former manager we had last season. It’s going to be more with the ball, more playing football. I think it’s going to be more enjoyable for people to watch, playing offensive football."
Tottenham Hotspur supporters have been dying to see offensive football back at the club, especially effective offensive football tactically. Ange Postecoglou played very offensively, but it just was not effective enough to win in the Premier League. Spurs fans have not seen a high level of coaching since Mauricio Pochettino, and they are thrilled to see what Roberto De Zerbi can do with better players after already making marked improvements in a few short weeks to save Spurs from relegation last season.
Micky van de Ven is not even hiding the fact that he is excited about how different things are going to be this season, and he did not hesitate to talk about the "former manager". And everyone knows Van de Ven is talking about Thomas Frank here and not Igor Tudor, who was just an interim manager brought in to try and deal with Frank's horrible mess. Spurs are going to play like an actual team under De Zerbi, and the fans could not be more excited for a push higher up the Premier League table.
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