Roberto De Zerbi outlines Tottenham expectations this season.
Roberto De Zerbi’s personal ambition for next season with Tottenham Hotspur extends to Champions League qualification. A club that finished 17th in the Premier League, survived relegation on the final day on goal difference, and employed three managers within twelve months targets a top-four finish in its first full season under a new coach who came to the club only in April.
That is as per Ben Jacobs via Last Word on Spurs.
“All of this does feel like a fresh start, and now Tottenham have to do two things: one, put their money where their mouth is, which has happened already with some shrewd signings, and two, start building a squad that’s capable of challenging at the top half of the table and trying to get one of those Champions League spots, and make no mistake, my expectation is that Roberto De Zerbi will have one aim. I don’t think he’ll put the pressure on the players of saying it outright, but privately, my information is that Roberto De Zerbi feels Spurs should be qualifying for the Champions League next season.”
From the quality of their targets this summer, it is clear that the club holds at least European ambitions, if not Champions League ambitions to match what De Zerbi is hoping to achieve, with the manager understood to be targeting significantly more than simply a comfortable mid-table position.
Too much to expect?
The statement deserves simultaneous credit and scrutiny. Credit, because De Zerbi’s ambition is the appropriate disposition for a manager with a five-year plan and institutional backing. A manager who arrives at a relegation survivor and says “let’s aim for eighth” is not the manager who attracts Savinho, pursues Bruno Guimaraes, or convinces Luka Vuskovic to reject Barcelona. It is also, presumably, genuinely held. De Zerbi has never managed a club for the purpose of mid-table consolidation. His entire managerial identity remains structured around transformation rather than maintenance.
The scrutiny, however, is equally warranted. The Premier League clubs currently occupying the top four positions are Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City under Maresca, and Manchester United, whose third-place finish this season was achieved without European distraction. Chelsea under Xabi Alonso will be genuine contenders.
Newcastle, who finished 12th despite Champions League participation and significant squad quality, represent the most optimistic recent precedent for a club emerging from a difficult campaign into European contention quickly. It took them two full seasons under Howe to translate genuine investment into a consistent top-four challenge.
Tottenham are not Newcastle. The infrastructure is better. The commercial revenue, even post-near-relegation, is more substantial. De Zerbi is arguably a more tactically sophisticated manager than Eddie Howe. The squad departures and arrivals of this summer, centred on Senesi, Robertson, Van Hecke, and Savinho, provide genuine quality improvement over what existed in January. De Zerbi targeting Champions League football is not delusional. It is ambitious. Those two things are occasionally identical.