Vinai Venkatesham and Johan Lange were sold on Roberto De Zerbi as both the short term answer to the Tottenham Hotspur relegation fight and the long term answer to the question of who forges the next era of the club.
Even though De Zerbi was initially reluctant to take the Spurs job on in the middle of a relegation fight, Vinai and Lange were able to convince the Italian manager to take the gig immediately by giving him a top salary. And surprisingly, they were able to bring him on even with stipulations that he would have to commit if they get relegated to the EFL Championship (we'll see if that stays true) and would not get a relegation clause if sent down.
But salary wasn't the only thing that convinced De Zerbi to choose Tottenham after all. Judging by the latest report, it may not even have been the real sweetener that got the former Brighton, Marseille, and Sassuolo coach to take on his biggest project yet in Tottenham.
Roberto De Zerbi is getting control
According to a report from Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, via Sport Witness, Tottenham Hotspur are set to make Roberto De Zerbi more than just their coach. Even though it seemed like Spurs were going after a more traditional model with a sporting director and manager setup, De Zerbi will apparently be given a central role in all decisions and will have such a powerful role that he will be like their Sir Alex Ferguson. Any player he wants Tottenham to buy, Gazzetta reports that De Zerbi will be likely to get his picks.
This was all reportedly a key condition to him signing on with Tottenham as their next manager. De Zerbi will have a lot of influence on Spurs transfer policy going forward, and he will also have wider control and say over operations at the club.
It is a level of control given to a manager that would have been unprecedented under Daniel Levy as CEO, as Levy never even gave legendary managerial figures like Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, though the latter was begging for it, this level of say in the dealings of the club.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Vinai Venkatesham and Johan Lange were so desperate for De Zerbi right now in the relegation fight that they are willing to hand over a lot of the future policy to one man - a man many fans are far from sold on as the right option.