Tottenham Hotspur manager Roberto De Zerbi has not won a single game to start the 2026/27 Premier League season, and whlie fans are still fully on board the train after he spared their relegation blushes last season and has now brought more stars than any other manager before him, there is a lot of unrest and a real sense of wanting tangible results with so many points dropped already.
A number of De Zerbi's decisions and favoritism are starting to come increasingly under the microscope, and one of his most frustrating quirks is his love affair with failed winter window signing Conor Gallagher.
Many Tottenham fans already saw the Gallagher failure coming right when Spurs overspent 40 million euros just to sign the Chelsea and Atletico Madrid transfer flop over interest from Aston Villa. Signing sloppy seconds from Stamford Bridge rarely leads to a positive for anyone involved, least of all Tottenham. But because Gallagher turned around his awful start somewhat by playing well for De Zerbi in the relegation fight, fans started to change their tune a bit and maybe start to believe what De Zerbi was seling them on Gallagher - one of his favorite players.
Conor Gallagher is holding back Tottenham again
Conor Gallagher started on Matchday 1 against Brentford in the No. 10 role with James Maddison still trying to get back to full fitness in order to start his first match since the 2025 ACL tear, but Gallagher was so inept in the blowout 3-0 loss at the Gtech Stadium that even Roberto De Zerbi had enough and benched him against Newcastle United.
With Tottenham Hotspur getting blown up again 2-0 by the Magpies, De Zerbi went back to the Gallagher well, inexplicably starting the England international over the far superior Mateus Fernandes, who had actually done well in James Maddison's stead against Newcastle on Matchday 2 with the former Leicester City star down for the count with a new injury.
Although Tottenham fared out better by getting a point against Nottingham Forest and Gallagher was not as awful, the problem is that he proved Spurs can't keep playing him as a 10. He created nothing of note and could not feed Omar Marmoush and the forwards, leaving them starved for chances. Mohammed Kudus and Marmoush are their best attacking players, and they stood no chance with Gallagher as a black hole of a 10, even with Sandro Tonali and Rodrigo Bentancur dominating the game behind him.
It's like De Zerbi can't see what everyone else does about Gallagher. If you play him as a 10 against any quality team in the Premier League, you will lose, because he won't be able to generate anything for the front line and you just cannot score goals that way. His favoritism for Gallagher is costly.
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