Tottenham Faces Reality Check in 3-0 Loss to Brentford
Tottenham’s lavish summer reset was given a brutal reality check on opening day as Brentford tore through Roberto De Zerbi’s side in a 3-0 dismantling that exposed old weaknesses in new colours.
Goals from Keane Lewis-Potter, Vitaly Janelt and Michael Kayode settled it, but the scoreline barely captured the gulf in cohesion, intensity and conviction between the two teams. Brentford looked ready. Spurs looked like a project still on the drawing board.
De Zerbi: “We are not a team yet”
De Zerbi, who was dropped in last season to drag Spurs away from relegation danger, did not sugar-coat what he had just watched.
“For many reasons I think we are not (a) team yet. We are not at the right point in physical condition,” he admitted, before cutting off any attempt at an alibi. “But no excuse. When you are building a new project I don’t want time, but we have to pass through these problems.
“I believe in my players, my club and myself. I think we are working well but we are late for the start of the Premier League.
“It’s a step we have to improve quickly. We could fight stronger than we did today and we lost too many duels.
“The target is to become (a) team. To find the spirit, the soul, is a process.”
That lack of collective edge was glaring. Spurs handed debuts to five players and, on paper, their summer has been aggressive and ambitious. Once deals for Savinho and Omar Marmoush are finalised, their spending is set to nudge past the €350million mark.
On the pitch, though, the numbers meant nothing. Brentford hunted in packs, snapped into challenges and ran harder for longer. Tottenham were second-best in too many 50-50s, too slow to second balls, too easy to rattle.
The pressure finally told.
Sangare announces himself
All the pre-match noise centred on Spurs’ rebuild. By full-time, the headline belonged to Brentford’s.
Their own marquee arrival, €48m midfielder Mamadou Sangare, dictated the tempo and ripped into the spaces Spurs left behind. He set up two of the three goals and looked every inch a Premier League natural from the first whistle.
“It’s pretty impressive on a lot of fronts. You never truly know from pre-season what you’re going to get,” said Brentford manager Keith Andrews. “But it felt like we were in a good spot and we produced a pretty good performance.”
Brentford beat off strong competition to land Sangare, and his debut showed exactly why they pushed so hard.
“More of the same from him, hopefully,” Andrews said. “It’s been nice working with him and the club deserves a lot of credit for getting that deal done because he could have gone elsewhere.
“He adds to an already quality midfield that we have. I really enjoyed his performance today.
“You never truly know in a different league, with a different language, but he’s a humble young man who looks very hungry.”
Hungry was the word. Sangare snapped into tackles, drove his team forward and repeatedly found pockets of space that Spurs never learned how to close. Every time Tottenham tried to build a foothold, he was there to break their rhythm and turn the game back Brentford’s way.
Brentford’s quiet rise continues
Last season Brentford missed out on European football on goal difference alone. They still feel overlooked in some corners of the league, still carry the air of a side people expect to fade.
Andrews is happy to let the football do the talking.
“That’s the beauty of this game,” he smiled. “It’s about journeys, it’s about stories, it’s about narrative. You’ve just got to go with it, haven’t you?”
Brentford’s journey continues to bend upwards. They have retooled without losing their identity, added a big-money signing who already looks at home, and opened the season by dismantling one of the division’s biggest spenders.
Tottenham’s story, by contrast, is only just beginning under De Zerbi’s full watch. The money is spent. The squad is reshaped. The rhetoric is clear: this is a new Spurs.
On this evidence, the soul he talks about is still missing. How quickly he can find it will define their season.
