Roberto De Zerbi's Transformation of Tottenham: From Survival to Ambition
Roberto De Zerbi remembers the silence first.
Sunderland away. A cold, grey afternoon, a 1-0 defeat, and a dressing room that looked less like the home of a Premier League club and more like a field hospital. Players on their backs. Some in tears. Seven games to save Tottenham.
“Did we pass away?” he asked them.
Four months on, the picture could not be more different.
From broken dressing room to barista coffee
In Sydney, on a private floor of a team hotel looking out towards the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, the same squad is laughing over coffees made by their own barista. Competitive table tennis, music, relaxed conversations. A club-record £237m worth of new signings weaving themselves into the group.
Survival was only secured on the final day of last season, but De Zerbi is behaving like a man who has no interest in merely surviving again. He talks openly about “building up a top team”. He believes Tottenham now deserve that.
The recruitment drive backs him up. Sandro Tonali, the £100m headline act from Newcastle. Mateus Fernandes, prised from West Ham for £85m. Jan Paul van Hecke in defence. Andrew Robertson at full-back. Martin Dubravka as experienced cover in goal. Marcos Senesi, fresh from a World Cup final with Argentina, joining slightly later after extended leave and now training at Hotspur Way.
This is not a club acting like it expects another relegation scrap.
Two plans, one shark
Tottenham entered the summer with two transfer plans: one for relegation, one for survival. Plan A won. Just.
De Zerbi insists he would have stayed even if Spurs had gone down, but he is clearly relishing the version of reality where they did not. He has leaned into the market with the same intensity he demanded in that desperate run-in.
“In the transfer market, when I want one player, I become like a shark,” he says. “No chance to say no.”
That aggression has shaped everything. Spurs knew they had to move fast and hit hard: on fees, on wages, and with De Zerbi’s personal involvement. It is why they beat Manchester United and Manchester City to Fernandes and Tonali. Why they took Van Hecke despite interest from Chelsea.
He loves this part of the job. Not tolerates it. Loves it.
“I love working in the transfer market. It’s not a pressure, it’s one of the nicest parts in my work,” he explains. The appeal, he says, lies in responsibility and connection. When the coach calls the player, he can build something from the first conversation.
With Fernandes, that meant going beyond the player. He spoke to his mother and father. He told the midfielder’s dad he would be a “second dad” in England. The human pitch, not just the tactical one.
The same approach worked on Van Hecke. After the Dutch defender assisted Georginio Rutter’s 95th-minute equaliser for Brighton in April, a goal that threatened to drag Spurs under, De Zerbi went straight for him.
“You wanted to push down Tottenham for Brighton when you made the assist to Rutter, now you have to come to me, you have no choice,” he later revealed.
Tonali received a message the day after Spurs secured their Premier League status with a final-day win over Everton. De Zerbi then flew to Brescia, sat down in the midfielder’s home, and turned interest into intent. Club staff finished the job with further talks. The pattern is clear: the coach opens the door, the club walks the player through it.
And he is not done. He is teasing one final attacking “bomba” – two forwards expected, including a move for Manchester City’s Savinho.
New faces, new power structure
The transformation is not limited to the pitch. Spurs have undergone a radical internal reset over the past 12 months.
Vinai Venkatesham, the new chief executive, now leads the club on behalf of the Lewis Family Trust. Technical director Johan Lange, the lone survivor from the previous regime, works alongside him on deals. They are supported by director of football operations Rafi Moersen and performance director Dan Lewindon, both recruited from City Football Group.
Lewindon’s brief is clear: fix Spurs’ injury record. De Zerbi’s brief, unofficial but obvious, is broader. He is hands-on everywhere.
He talks about money as if it is his own. He describes the owner as “my father” and says he does not want to ask his father to lose money. That mindset shaped the £45m sale of Luka Vuskovic to Brighton and the refusal to push through a permanent deal for Joao Palhinha from Bayern Munich, not because of doubts over the player, but because the financial package did not fit the plan.
“We assessed the request of Vuskovic [to join Brighton], with Vinai, with Johan together, because I consider Tottenham’s money my money,” he says. For him, big clubs must sell at the highest possible price and buy at the lowest possible price. Not for a quick fix, but for a five-year build.
The Lewis family injected £100m into the club in June, money De Zerbi insists was desperately needed rather than a reckless splurge. He points to Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool doing the same in recent years. He says he feels “no pressure” from that spending.
Doubts remain over the futures of Lucas Bergvall and Djed Spence. The churn is not over. But the direction is clearer than it has been for some time.
From fear to “love, friendship and care”
The emotional repair job has been just as important as the structural one.
After that first game at Sunderland, the despair was not confined to the dressing room. Staff at the training ground felt it too. The club carried the weight of a traumatic season, on top of finishing 17th the previous year – a campaign that ended with a Europa League triumph under Ange Postecoglou but never carried the same fear of the drop.
“The day after I organised a meeting without players and I said, ‘The first one I see say something negative, I send you home immediately’,” De Zerbi recalls. Negativity, he decided, had to be driven out.
He also flooded the place with conversation. “At the beginning of my time in April I had one million individual meetings,” he jokes. Players told him if they wanted to leave. His response was blunt: help me keep this club up, and I’ll help you go. Refuse, and “you stay underwater with me”.
He took them all out for “one big dinner in Mayfair, with alcohol”. A deliberate step away from the tension of the run-in. He still believes Spurs were unlucky in their final matches and could have secured safety earlier, but the scars remained.
“I think they considered themselves in that moment worse than the people thought,” he admits. The healing, he says, is ongoing. He wants the players to organise the next dinner and drinks themselves, without him.
For De Zerbi, the path to becoming “top, top, top” is not just tactics and transfers. It is “love, friendship and care”. It is changing “behaviour, attitude and spirit” in a group that has lived too long with chaos and crisis.
The shark in the transfer market, the disciplinarian in meetings, the “second dad” on the phone to parents: all of those versions of De Zerbi are now steering Tottenham into a season that will demand proof.
They have spent, they have rebuilt, they have survived. Now comes the only question that matters: can this new Tottenham live like a big club, rather than simply avoid dying like a small one?
