Roberto De Zerbi's Vision for Tottenham: Building a Strong Squad

Roberto De Zerbi is not in the business of begging players to stay at Tottenham. Not even the ones he clearly adores.

Lucas Bergvall started his first match of Spurs’ friendly tour in the penalty shootout win over Sydney FC on Wednesday, but his future remains clouded. Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest have already tested Tottenham’s resolve and been pushed back. The player, just 20 and already a Sweden international, has a decision to make.

De Zerbi’s stance? Brutally simple.

“I would like that he stays with us — I think he's a potential top, top, top player, but in the end I don't want to convince anyone to stay,” he said, doubling down on a message he has repeated since walking through the door.

This is not a manager pleading for loyalty. It is a manager setting terms.

“We are not to convince anyone to stay,” he continued. “I think Tottenham is already, without me, a top club… We are Tottenham and we have to build a strong squad, not just 11 players.”

That line matters. Under De Zerbi, Spurs are not selling a dream to restless talent; they are building a squad that can absorb departures, injuries, and the grind of a season that now demands 22 to 24 ready-made options.

He referenced the last two or three campaigns, scarred by injuries, as a warning. Modern football, in his eyes, has shifted decisively. To fight at the top of the table, depth is no longer a luxury. It is survival.

Bergvall sits right at the heart of that vision. Young, technically gifted, and still far from his ceiling.

De Zerbi has invested time in him already, long before this pre-season tour.

“I'm speaking with him before the end of the last season, during the World Cup two times, now we are speaking better now [face to face] without competition in this moment,” he explained. Only now, with the noise of competitive football dialled down, has the Italian been able to work with him properly, in his words, “like I know, like my style.”

Last season, he says, the focus with the group was on mentality, on the “head”, rather than the finer points of his positional play. That has changed. The coach now has a clearer picture of where Bergvall fits.

“I think his position is very clear for me now also because I needed time to understand the characteristic of the players,” De Zerbi said. “But I would like that he stays with us. He's a very young, very good player, good guy, and it's not so easy and so fast to find a young player of that level.”

The subtext is obvious. Tottenham believe they have something rare on their hands. The manager does too. Yet he refuses to twist the player’s arm. Stay, and you fight for your place in a fiercely competitive squad. Leave, and Spurs move on.

While Bergvall weighs it all up, De Zerbi has already started to fix his gaze on another key piece of Tottenham’s future: Sandro Tonali.

If Bergvall is the emerging project, Tonali is the headline act, the record-breaking arrival from Newcastle. De Zerbi’s description of him left no doubt about the scale of his expectations.

“A precious diamond.”

The phrase cut through the usual pre-season platitudes. Tonali is not just another signing; he is a centrepiece. But diamonds are fragile before they are set.

“We have to manage him like a precious diamond,” De Zerbi stressed. That means polishing his decision-making, sharpening his final actions, and building his physical base. The talent, he insists, is already there. The rest will come with work.

“He has to work hard to become stronger because this diamond footballer needs to be strong and to give space when there is the right moment,” the Spurs boss said.

De Zerbi’s track record with young players underpins all of this. He trusts them, gives them minutes, but demands that they grow into the demands of his football.

“I usually give time to all my young players I work with in my career, and with his potential, he is a special player.”

So Tottenham stand at an intriguing crossroads. One young midfielder wondering whether to commit his future to a project that promises competition and growth. Another, already installed as a record signing, being shaped into the engine of De Zerbi’s new side.

The message from the manager does not waver: the door is open, the standards are high, and no one will be chased to walk through it.