De Zerbi and Tottenham - more black and white than it seems
Flirting more with relegation by the week, Tottenham Hotspur have now appointed their third manager of the season, passionate Italian Roberto De Zerbi.
Putting out the fire
On the face of it, the Lewis family, fronted by Vinai Venkatesham and Johan Lange, has taken a huge gamble. De Zerbi is not the interim solution that would calmly steer the club to safety before making way for the more obviously popular appointment of Mauricio Pochettino.
He is a long-term hire (at least based on his five-year contract) who, should he keep Spurs in the Premier League, will be full of demands and expectations to reward the achievement.
This should not be an issue, of course. The club should build an empire for the man who stopped Rome burning. In practice, however, De Zerbi has left his last three clubs in less than half that time, despite relative success, albeit with clear extenuating circumstances ending his time at Shakhtar Donetsk prematurely.
Controversial Comments
Even then, this would not ordinarily pose so many questions. At the end of the day, the length of a manager’s contract is usually only relevant when calculating the eventual cost of their departure, and De Zerbi will have been negotiating from a position of strength given Spurs predicament.
However, unlike the aforementioned former Spurs manager currently in the hot seat with the USA, De Zerbi is not a unifying appointment. No fewer than three Spurs fan groups expressed contempt at going down this path, owing to comments he made regarding a former player who has been tarred by grave historical accusations.
Anybody reading will already be very aware of De Zerbi's words, which were tone deaf and lacking in empathy. They were not beyond redemption, such things are rarely black and white.
Without marginalising the views of those who were against hiring the former Marseille manager, there will be more context around his relationship with the player, the pressures he’d have from his employers PR function, and other contributing factors which are not publicly available. It remains to be seen if this elephant in the room will be addressed by Spurs or De Zerbi.
However, words are very rarely worthy of casting an inedible dye on someone’s character. To the contrary, there are multiple instances of players widely adored by the Spurs fan base despite having acted in a more tangibly harmful way than De Zerbi has. Spurs supporter do not appear to denounce the 2008 League Cup win, the 1991 FA Cup win, or ‘that night in Amsterdam’.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, neither does hypocrisy.
Best fit
Moving away from how complicated the optics around De Zerbi’s character are, Spurs are in trouble. Arguably, not since their own relegation in the 1970s has a club of this size been demoted to the second tier.
With seven matches remaining, there were very few managerial options, and those options are largely populated by recent managerial failures, those with no experience in this league (which the club already tried) or Sean Dyche and Robert De Zerbi.
Both these managers have recent experience in the Premier League and can be considered successful to some degree; both have the hardened self-belief that is undoubtedly required to get the side breaking the habits of almost two seasons. No other candidate comes close in terms of suitability for the role. So in scrutinising who is the right choice, we need to look deeper.
With no wish to diminish the good career Dyche has had so far, this is where he obviously isn’t the answer. Like Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor, he has only ever set teams up to play deep and without the ball. Regardless of aesthetics, this will not work with the Spurs players.
These defenders do not like defending their own box. Van de Ven’s biggest tool, his pace, becomes obsolete, while Romero is always a mistimed lunge away from surrendering a great scoring opportunity. None of the full backs enjoy either stopping a cross or reading it, and all of the midfielders are happier with less of the pitch to cover.
Nothing seems more obvious to me than keeping the Spurs players as far away from their goal as possible, which means the Italian manager’s high press, high line, and determination to play in the opposition half. Spurs do not have what it takes to ‘play ugly’, so they’ll only get out of this mess by doing what the squad has, albeit deficiently, been built to do.
Passing the eye test
The other side of the game, and long-term very relevant, is on the ball. Even if we concede that Spurs should try to find a way to play “Dyche-ball” in these seven cup finals, Dyche, like De Zerbi, wanted a long-term contract, according to every report.
What happens when Spurs stay up, but next season the crowd is again groaning at the style of play? The locals didn’t take it from Mourimho or Conte, so I think the answer is obvious.
De Zerbi’s Brighton, however, were one of only a handful of sides who have broken the trend of attritional, mundane football which has plagued the past half-decade. Only Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp, Arne Slot, and, for 10 games, Ange Postecoglou, can say the same.
One thing we know about Spurs' supporters is that they will show far more patience when they feel like their values are being upheld on the pitch. If that happens, I expect plenty to calm down about their assumptions regarding the new manager's values on it.
The risk of not hiring De Zerbi
Amidst all this, having identified De Zerbi as the best long-term and short-term option, the club could not ignore the damage that relegation brings. The bigger a club is, the harder it will fall.
The revenue lost: TV, matchday, and sponsorship, would be astronomical. The result, a huge employer in north London would go for the easiest way to cut costs quickly, dispensing with the jobs of any and every staff member deemed expendable.
In the current climate, that is a lot of income suddenly lost to people who need it far more than the more visible millionaire executives and footballers. If Spurs felt the best chance of survival was with De Zerbi, the club was absolutely right to prioritise survival and hopefully avoid all the repercussions of relegation over avoiding some short-term PR damage.
Seven cup finals
To bring this back to football, whilst not tangible, there is a lot to be said for Spurs hiring a manager who everyone would see at a top club in a top league next season. The message sent to rivals, supporters and the playing staff is “we are not going down”.
Now De Zerbi and his inherited squad need to show as much. Sunderland away, the first cup final, awaits. The first of seven opportunities for the new Spurs manager to earn his stripes.