As Roberto De Zerbi ran down the touchline in celebration of Joao Palhinha giving Tottenham Hotspur the lead against Everton on the final day of the Premier League season, one of his players was in hot pursuit.
As Tottenham’s Italian head coach turned towards the crowd and let out a roar of sheer jubilation, substitute goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario jumped on his back.
It’s hard to imagine a Tottenham players embracing the two previous managers to have worked at the club this season in quite the same way.
As the full-time whistle blew on a 1-0 Spurs victory that ensured they had narrowly avoided relegation, Pedro Porro dropped to the floor and started crying. De Zerbi charged on to the pitch, arms-wide in celebration, before spotting the Spanish right-back and giving him a hug, along with Cristian Romero and Randal Kolo Muani. Archie Gray then turned to De Zerbi and lifted him up in the air.
Spurs were in a desperate situation when they appointed De Zerbi on a five-year contract on March 31. The players looked broken and the fanbase were bereft after a 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest in Igor Tudor’s final game in charge left them only a point above the relegation zone, with no win in 13 league matches. Dropping into the Championship felt like a distinct possibility for the ninth-richest club in the world, but the Italian pulled them back from the brink.
Spurs earned 11 points out of a possible 21 under De Zerbi as they secured their top-flight status on the final day. It might not sound like a lot, but the 46-year-old had to contend with injuries to club-record signing Dominic Solanke, captain Romero, Xavi Simons and Mohammed Kudus.
Chief executive officer Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange pushed to hire De Zerbi because he has an attractive, possession-dominant style of play. Multiple sources who spoke to The Athletic, on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, marvelled at De Zerbi’s communication skills too. He restored confidence in the squad and the coaching staff and changed their mindset. De Zerbi has been in the job for less than two months but quickly forged a strong bond with his players, as shown by those full-time scenes.
De Zerbi took a gamble by joining Spurs with seven games remaining and was dealt a bad hand by the injury crisis. Yet he adapted and kept them up, which he described as the biggest achievement of his managerial career.
“I want to thank him from the bottom of my heart,” Vicario told reporters afterwards. “Because we were suffering a lot and he gave us a lot of joy in every aspect.”
James Maddison went a step further. “I think that appointment has kind of saved the disaster from happening.”
Thomas Frank made a costly error in his first press conference after replacing Ange Postecoglou as head coach last summer on a three-year deal. Frank was trying to set realistic expectations for the season, but made comments that were interpreted as defeatist.
“One thing is 100 per cent sure, we will lose football matches,” he said. “I haven’t seen a team that is not losing any football matches. There is Arsenal, that we can’t mention, in the Premier League. So I made my first rookie mistake there.”
There were other examples of Frank striking the wrong chord with his messaging and his replacement Tudor committed similar mistakes. After a 3-1 defeat to Crystal Palace in March, which was triggered by Micky van de Ven’s red card just before half-time, Tudor hinted at discord in the dressing room.
“I need to choose the right guys because the boat is going in the direction that I want to go and needs to go and who is in the boat can stay,” he said. “Otherwise, they can bow down, or how do you say that, leave the boat.”
De Zerbi’s defiant comments in public and behind the scenes had a galvanising impact on the squad. Georginio Rutter’s stoppage-time equaliser for Brighton & Hove Albion in the Italian’s second game in charge denied Spurs a first league win in almost four months. But rather than wallow, De Zerbi boldly declared his new team could win all of their remaining five matches.
“They have to be stronger and come to the training ground on Monday afternoon with a smile, because otherwise they go home immediately,” he said. “I have no time to see negative people, to see sad players or sad assistants. No, we are lucky because we are working in a big club, a big stadium. We are working in the Premier League. We have the qualities, the right qualities to win the game. So we have to be positive, because I don’t like the people who cry, who think in a negative way.”
But De Zerbi needed to do more than say the right words and take the players out for dinner to ensure their survival. He lived at the training ground with his assistants and spent hours working on game plans. He made lots of tweaks including pushing Conor Gallagher higher up the pitch. Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall started his first game against Sunderland next to Gallagher, but from there on De Zerbi preferred the experience of Rodrigo Bentancur and Palhinha. He impressed one senior player with the specificity of his instructions in training and the focus on what Spurs could do in possession.
One senior source at the club described De Zerbi’s coaching as “first class”, while another praised him for giving Gallagher a “new lease of life”. The 25-year-old midfielder struggled to settle after joining Spurs from Atletico Madrid in January for €40million. He had started every game under Frank but was dropped to the bench by Tudor and deployed out of position on the right wing. Gallagher revealed after beating Everton that De Zerbi had shown him YouTube clips of his previous performances for Chelsea.
“He completely turned around the start of my Spurs career,” Gallagher said. “It was obviously really tough for me, and the whole team. But I was in and out of the team, no confidence, didn’t feel great physically and then he came in and showed belief and gave my confidence back. I was able to do what I do best on the pitch. I’ve really enjoyed the last seven games with the new gaffer.
“One of the YouTube videos was titled ‘Bossing the midfield — Conor Gallagher’, or something like that. It’s funny because I’ve seen that before and he’s just there showing me in this meeting room. I think he did that with a few of the other lads. But that was one of his many ways to get players’ confidence back and it helped me. He’s been so good for me.”
There are lots of other examples of De Zerbi using his emotional intelligence to connect with the players. Kolo Muani was substituted at half-time in last month’s victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers. After the game, De Zerbi said he planned to have “breakfast, lunch and dinner” with the forward every day for the next week “because he is a top player and plays better the better he feels”.
He said he wanted to give Mathys Tel a “big hug and a big kiss” after the 1-1 draw with Leeds United in which Tel opened the scoring but then conceded a penalty for catching Ethan Ampadu in the face while attempting to clear the ball with an overhead kick.
De Zerbi made fringe and injured members of the squad feel included. He named Maddison in the matchday squad on multiple occasions when he was not fully fit because he valued the midfielder’s leadership. Ben Davies, who is recovering from ankle surgery, travelled with the squad to Villa Park and was allowed to stay with them overnight at the training ground before Everton. Solanke was not fit enough to feature against his former club Chelsea but was spotted with his team-mates at Stamford Bridge.
De Zerbi was forced to play ‘keeper Antonin Kinsky in his first match after Vicario underwent hernia surgery at the start of the March international break.
On one of his first days in the job, he spoke to Vicario about Kinsky. Vicario insisted his team-mate had recovered from a bruising experience in the first leg of their Champions League tie with Atletico. De Zerbi considered giving Kinsky the captain’s armband against Sunderland.
“If we are a team, we are like a family,” he said. “If one of us is going through a difficult period we have to stay with him, to show him love, to show him everything he needs. But (Kinsky) didn’t need, because he is a strong character, a strong personality.”
In the end, De Zerbi stuck with Kinsky when Vicario was back available for the final two games and Spurs looked more composed playing out from the back.
De Zerbi recognised everybody’s efforts. He publicly praised Radu Dragusin after the final game of the season. The Romania international only made two late substitute appearances across the last seven games.
“He didn’t play, but he was always positive inside the dressing room, inside the pitch,” De Zerbi said. “Bentancur, because Bentancur when he came back from the injury, he wanted to play, he came to me to say, ‘I want to play, I’m ready to play’.
“Djed Spence, before the Chelsea game he came in my office and said, ‘I want to play, you always speak about personality, the courage — I’m here if you want to play with one player’. I love it. Micky van de Ven, great guy, sensitive guy, I spent a lot of time with him because I consider him the best centre-back, or left centre, in the Premier League. A lot of the players. Richarlison. Archie Gray. I can’t say one.”
De Zerbi deserves a huge amount of credit for keeping Spurs in the division and now attention turns to what comes next. Spurs have done a lot of the groundwork on deals for free agents Marcos Senesi and Andy Robertson, but De Zerbi wanted to wait until after the season had finished before discussing other transfer plans. Meetings are due to take place this week and there is a lot of work to do.
Richarlison only has a year left on his contract, while Yves Bissouma and Ben Davies’s deals are about to expire. Palhinha’s loan spell from Bayern Munich is over but it contained an option to make the move permanent for €30million and he wants to stay. Kolo Muani’s loan from Juventus is also up, although it feels far less likely he’ll be in N17 next season. Wilson Odobert and Simons are expected to miss a significant chunk of next season after suffering anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries. There are also questions over the future of Vicario, with Kinsky having performed so well in goal over the final weeks of the season.
In a letter to supporters, which was released on Monday, non-executive chairman Peter Charrington said Spurs are committed to building a squad “with the right blend of experience, youth and leadership to compete at the highest levels of Premier League and European football”.
Spurs need to learn from last summer when they failed to close deals for Morgan Gibbs-White, Eberechi Eze and Antoine Semenyo. By the time they registered interest in Bryan Mbeumo, the forward had already agreed to join Manchester United from Brentford. The blame for missing out on those targets was placed with then executive chairman Daniel Levy.
The pressure is on Venkatesham and Lange to deliver what De Zerbi wants. Then there is the added complicating factor of Spurs hiring a new sporting director to work alongside Lange. Sebastian Kehl, who has previously held a similar role at Borussia Dortmund, is the leading contender. It is vital they move quickly and efficiently in the market.
“From tonight we have to start to organise and to build a new team,” De Zerbi said. “I think we have now to change too many players. We have 10, 11, 12 players good enough to stay… And then we have to complete the squad with the first level of players.
“First level of players because we suffered too much. I suffered a lot but I think the fans, the club, the board, the players. They suffered too much. We are Tottenham and we can’t suffer like this until the last second of the last game to stay up.
“And I will be stronger. I will be stronger. I don’t want to decide alone because football is a group — sporting director, scouting, CEO — but my target now is finished to stay up. My target is to start the pre-season with the team I have in my dream.”
Nobody can begrudge De Zerbi dreaming after he saved Spurs from a nightmare.