Back on Valentine's Day, Tottenham Hotspur appointed Igor Tudor as "Men’s Head Coach until the end of the season". Well, after collecting just one point from five Premier League games, the Croatian did not meet that time frame, departing "by mutual consent" on Sunday, following the catastrophic 3-0 home defeat at the hands of Nottingham Forest.
As for his successor, Roberto De Zerbi was appointed on Tuesday, putting pen to paper on a five-year contract. However, if the next seven games do not go to plan, that could be optimistic, and the Italian's first few matches at many of his previous clubs is a cause for concern.
Given Spurs' current predicament, De Zerbi made it clear that he was only interested in taking the job come the summer, depending on what division the club was in. However, CEO Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange seemingly just threw more money at him, hence why he's agreed to start now. The 46 year old has only been out of work since February when he was sacked by the chaotic institution that is Olympique de Marseille.
It is worth noting that, during his time at Stade Vélodrome, De Zerbi publicly supported Mason Greenwood, labelling him a “good person”, adding “it saddens me what happened to him because I know a very different person from the one portrayed in England”. Well, in response to this, Proud Lilywhites, Women of the Lane and others said that his appointment has placed a “heavy strain” on the club, causing division among the fan base when unity is required.
With this as the back drop, De Zerbi is under enormous pressure to deliver results straight away. Spurs are currently one point and one place above the relegation zone, and will kick off at the Stadium of Light in the bottom three if West Ham beat Wolves at home in the Friday night fixture.
When De Zerbi arrived at Brighton, replacing Graham Potter, captain Lewis Dunk described the first few weeks of training as "baffling", noting that the "radical changes" the manager implemented took weeks for the squad to get to grips with. This was bared out by results.
Roberto De Zerbi's first 6 matches in charge of former clubs
De Zerbi's clubs | Wins | Draws | Loses |
|---|---|---|---|
Marseille | 4 | 1 | 1 |
Brighton* | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Shakhtar Donetsk | 5 | 0 | 1 |
Sassuolo | 4 | 1 | 1 |
Benevento* | 0 | 1 | 5 |
Palermo* | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Foggia | 1 | 2 | 3 |
Darfo Boario* | 0 | 3 | 3 |
Note: *indicates he was appointed during the season.
History tells us that De Zerbi starts slowly when appointed mid-season. At Brighton, he did not win any of his first five matches, losing three of them. Similarly, after taking over as Benevento manager in October 2017, he picked up just one point from his first nine Serie A outings as the Giallorossi finished rock-bottom. A year earlier, he lasted a miserly 13 matches in charge of Palermo, winning only one and suffering ten defeats, swiftly dismissed by the Rosanero who went through five managers that season and were unsurprisingly also relegated.
Well, if similar were to happen again, Tottenham will be an EFL Championship club by 24 May. He does have a week and a half to prepare for that trip to Wearside, but Guglielmo Vicario, Ben Davies, Rodrigo Bentancur, Yves Bissouma, Pape Matar Sarr, Mohammed Kudus, Mathys Tel, Wilson Odobert, James Maddison and Dejan Kuluševski all remain sidelined, very much limiting options.
After facing Sunderland, De Zerbi's former team Brighton will visit N17, before games against Wolves, Aston Villa, Leeds, Chelsea and then Everton on the final day. That is not an easy set of fixtures, so the five-year contract the new head coach signed could be made to look very sill in 53 days time.