"I will be the coach of Tottenham [Hotspur] next season, no matter what".
Fresh from signing a five-year deal in north London, Roberto De Zerbi has reaffirmed the belief that he is in it for the long haul, even despite the looming prospect of Premier League relegation.
There's seven games remaining, seven 'finals' as the cliche goes, with the Italian left to pick up the pieces after a disastrous interim reign under Igor Tudor.
It all gets going away at Sunderland next week, with De Zerbi needing to make sure he doesn't fall into the same trap as the man before him.
The big issues De Zerbi needs to solve at Spurs
First and foremost, the north London side need to see a sense of stability return, particularly in terms of selection, with Tudor guilty of flitting between an array of tactical set-ups during his brief stint at the helm.
Whether De Zerbi - a man who used 49 players across just 69 games in charge at Marseille - is the man to provide that remains to be seen, although back at Brighton and Hove Albion, he did settle on a 4-2-3-1 system, even if the personnel within that routinely changed.
Equally too, the enigmatic coach would at least provide a sense of clarity, despite potential teething problems, regarding the way he wants his side to play, having typically favoured a possession-heavy approach in his previous posts.
In 2022/23, for instance, his Seagulls side finished third in the division with regard to average possession per game.
There was never any sense under Tudor, not Thomas Frank for that matter, of what the actual plan at Spurs was, with the former also particularly guilty of needlessly shuffling his pack, such as dropping Xavi Simons to the bench after his sparkling display at home to Atletico Madrid.
De Zerbi, injuries permitting, needs to build around the likes of Simons and those who can be in it for the long haul, with Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall and Mathys Tel also falling into that category.
On the flip side, the new boss could also be rather ruthless with those unlikely to be involved beyond the end of this season.
The Werner should be furious that Spurs have hired De Zerbi
Looking back on Tudor's dismal tenure, there weren't exactly too many green shoots, with the only significant positives having been the hard-fought draw away at Anfield, alongside the 3-2 win against Atleti after a sparkling attacking display.
That victory - which proved to be the only one of the Croatian's spell in charge - did also see on-loan Frenchman, Randal Kolo Muani, get on the scoresheet, with the Paris Saint-Germain striker heading home in expert fashion in the first half.
The 27-year-old - who signed under Frank back in the summer - had also broken his Premier League duck in the north London derby defeat prior to that, alongside providing the assist for Richarlison on Merseyside.
Indeed, two of his five total goals for Spurs came in the space of just seven games under Tudor, with the 47-year-old seemingly the man who knows how to get the best out of Kolo Muani, considering their prior relationship at Juventus.
The 2022 World Cup finalist had arrived in north London off the back of that promising loan spell in Turin last season, scoring ten times in just 22 games for the Serie A side, five of which came in 11 games under Tudor.
Frustratingly, however, that form has largely deserted him since then, excluding those brief moments under Tudor, with his tally of just one Premier League goal making for particularly grim reading.
Not the only misfiring figure in a struggling forward line, Kolo Muani joins those before him as yet another wayward, high-profile addition, perhaps in a similar mould to Timo Werner under Ange Postecoglou.
Like the France international, Werner had arrived in north London looking to resurrect his career somewhat after a difficult spell at Chelsea, having returned to RB Leipzig in the summer of 2022.
Once the golden boy at the Bundesliga side prior to moving to Stamford Bridge, the German rocked up at Spurs in January 2024 as a player seemingly starved of confidence, never truly looking like the answer for Postecoglou's side.
While six goals and assists in 13 Premier League games over the next six months did lead to an extension of his loan, Werner proceeded to fade from view in 2024/25, ending his time at the club in May last year with just three goals in 41 games in all competitions.
Kolo Muani is heading into similar territory, it must be said, with the one-time Nantes man likely to be furious that the man who appears to get the best out of him - Tudor - has been sent packing so quickly.
In De Zerbi, he might not find such a well-suited coach, with the likes of Dominic Solanke and Richarlison surely set to be ahead of him in the battle for that solitary striker berth.