This summer Tottenham spent £400m on new players, and the board stood firmly behind manager Roberto de Zerbi. But assembling a squad this large in a single transfer window causes serious difficulties for any manager, and there is no simple solution.
A former manager who built teams through careful additions over years compares the Spurs situation to buying a wedding outfit and spending every penny on pink shoes, brown trousers, yellow shirt and orange tie. That approach does not work.
Spurs had just avoided relegation two seasons running, finishing 17th twice in a row. Suddenly some fans were looking forward to a season competing for trophies and a top-four finish. Their early results and performances have been disappointing, but fans have to understand all the different factors that affect you when you are building a team.
De Zerbi’s biggest challenge
De Zerbi faces several problems beyond Tottenham’s weak home record and their tendency to trail after letting in the opening goal. The real test for him is integrating the players who have recently joined the club with the ones already here, so that they play together as a cohesive unit and deliver results that justify the money the club has spent.
This process will demand patience and attention to detail, with many small tasks that supporters never notice.
When I was working, we were given enough time to build both a team and a family. Today’s managers, however, seem to be fighting against a shortage of time that never existed before.
The international break makes it worse
The majority of De Zerbi’s players have been taken away for another three weeks on international duty, which means he hasn’t been given that early time and opportunity. The new signings barely know each other, let alone De Zerbi’s system, and the manager is missing the chance to work with his full squad.
De Zerbi is an outspoken, ambitious manager who asks for total commitment and backing from his board. He has gotten exactly that at Spurs, which has left people puzzled about why he has made such a slow start.
The man who previously managed the club believed that De Zerbi’s toughest test before the season began was bringing players together as a team rather than simply as a collection of individuals. That particular problem is one he has faced himself, such as during his early days at Stoke, where he signed Gerry Taggart and Michael Duberry to play alongside each other — two centre-halves who were complete opposites in how they handled space on the pitch.
Gerry always wanted to drop off deeper because he wasn’t overly quick, whereas Michael was fast and didn’t ever worry about leaving space behind him. The former manager couldn’t make Gerry any quicker, so he had to convince Michael that he would have to take a step away from his main strengths of pace and power and work along Gerry’s lines instead.
A great deal of time was spent on the grass in training before both came together in unison. Each was distinct, yet both grasped the value of operating as a pair for the good of the team. The fit did not come quickly, however.
The cost of changing everything at once
If a manager wants to put together a winning group by building combinations, the key requirement is spending enough time with his players. A number of cases demonstrate how this approach operates.
- Sunderland last season settled quickly despite losing several key players
- Brighton has settled quickly year after year despite losing key players
- Brentford and Bournemouth have settled quickly with clear identities
In every instance, the key distinction is that those clubs may have altered their manager, yet they have kept their identity intact. Whether the pairing is Sunderland and Brighton, or Brentford and Bournemouth, each has a fixed identity such that when seeking a player for a specific position, he must possess particular strengths.
Without a clear foundation built up over years of familiarity with each position, signing 10 new players all at once, as Spurs have just done, leaves the coach with real problems. Every player arrives with their own temperament and requires a distinct period to become comfortable with both a new setting and the high expectations of a coach like De Zerbi.
If all the players had spent time together before the season began, getting used to their team-mates and learning what De Zerbi expects from them, with his front-foot approach, that settling-in period would have already been taken care of. But it did not happen, and even after the season got underway, Spurs kept bringing new players into the squad.
What fans need to do
Building a team that works as one demands patience, time and a clear sense of what each player brings to the table. Once you have that, joining every player into a single unit takes more time, and that remains De Zerbi’s problem right now.
He was always behind the curve from the start. Since none of his players were ready when the season opened, he never got the chance to size up his roster and put his own stamp on his best group. A coach by nature, he would rather be out on the practice field running a system of work for the team, both with and without the ball.
The former manager’s message is simple: let De Zerbi do his job. The early results and performances have been disappointing, but the former manager likes De Zerbi’s passion and his approach. That will count for nothing if Spurs don’t eventually produce, but let’s give him a proper chance.
Spurs fans are already calling De Zerbi the worst manager in the world, despite him proving elsewhere how good he is, even though we have barely started the season, with just five games under our belts.
Source material: “Why this break has come at the worst time for De Zerbi & Spurs,” the BBC.
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