Roberto De Zerbi is a cult leader. He makes footballers, agents and club owners blindly believe in his methods. But what happens if those strategies don’t work out?
I’ve been writing football analysis for a decade now. Here’s what I believe are De Zerbi’s Tottenham tactics, and why implementing them has been harder than expected.
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Career Prior to Managing Tottenham Hotspur
Roberto De Zerbi has rarely been as connected to the top tier of football as he has been in recent years.
That being said, he was a talented, technically gifted midfielder with a near 15-year career. Developed at AC Milan, he mostly played for Serie B teams. The exception was Napoli, where he was a squad player for four years.
While finishing out his career at CFR Cluj in Romania, De Zerbi began taking coaching and tactical analysis seriously. He began managing in Italy’s lower tiers in 2013, but by 2021 he’d been handed the keys to a richly assembled Shakhtar.
A shock appointment wth Brighton followed, as did a set of very strong Premier League results. He abruptly quit in 2024, joined Olympique Marseille and headed one of the most unpredictable and form-oscillating teams in European football.
Faced with the prospect of a shock relegation, Tottenham handed him a contract and answered most of his demands in 2026.
So, what are De Zerbi’s Spurs tactics? And here’s why I think implementing them has been a difficult task in the manager’s early months.
Tactical Philosophy
You get nowhere playing it safe! In my opinion, at least, you won’t get anywhere near having a team like Tottenham want to sign you.
Roberto De Zerbi wants to play dynamic, possession-based football. This is what earned his reputation while at Brighton.
At its most basic, this means that all the Tottenham players, including the goalkeeper, must be comfortable passing under pressure. It also means players must move and rotate positions so there’s always a 3vs2 superiority when building an attack. It especially means they have to bait the opponents into pressing them.
Players should also be able to play direct passes when the opponents’ press has given them enough space.
Finally, ideally, De Zerbi’s Tottenham should commit to a high press, play in a compact shape, and force opponents into mistakes.
The only question, I think, is whether De Zerbi has brought in players who can execute this complex plan. My opinion is that he hasn’t.
Formations and Adaptability
Since De Zerbi is such a fan of Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp’s styles of play, it will not surprise you to learn that his preferred formation is a 4-2-3-1, or a variation of it.
In my opinion, build-up play in this formation almost always starts in a 4-3-3 set-up.
When defending, Spurs leave the two central defenders back, move two attacking players to charge the opponents’ ball-playing defenders, and shift everyone else, narrowly, into the centre of the pitch.
Tottenham in Defence
Frankly, many of Spurs’ biggest problems, in my opinion, stem from De Zerbi being forced to alter his approach after bad results.
Spurs have ended up having a bit of the high-pressing approach, but not a fully committed one. It’s a team that builds up from the back, but is known to blast the ball forward when they’ve conceded. It defends narrowly in a high press, but not against stronger opposition that can open it up on the flanks.
Tottenham play with a back four. They tend to sit in a mid-block. They prefer going man-to-man, and aggressively searching for pressing triggers (as they did against Liverpool when they constantly hassled the opponent’s full-backs).
In theory, the team defends in a kind of 5-2-3 where one of the two pivots, usually Rodrigo Bentancur, drops deeper between the central defenders. The wing-backs, Archie Gray and Andy Robertson, who play pretty tucked in when in possession, are also supposed to quickly shuffle into defensive positions. The three attacking players are meant to press the defenders trying to build up.
I think that Gray’s inability in terms of tackling and Robertson’s low stamina due to age create difficulties in implementing these plans. Meanwhile, van Hecke has proven to be a great upgrade over Cristian Romero.
De Zerbi’s Preferred Build-Up
A lot has been made of Roberto De Zerbi’s “press baiting.” In essence, this refers to a ball-playing defender putting the sole of his foot on the ball and trying to challenge the nearest opponent in a low block.
I think this is a slight exaggeration overall. I think it’s a big exaggeration, considering Tottenham’s passing ability. While the team’s midfield maestro, Sandro Tonali, has a pass rate of 89%, he averages only 58 passes per game. Bentacur’s successful passes are nearly as many, but he only makes 50 passes per game.
Ok. But this system of press-baiting is ultimately supposed to create numerical superiority, allow tempo shifts, and enable direct passes toward the attackers. Is this working at Spurs?
At the time of writing, Spurs play the fewest short passes in the whole of the Premier League. They sit right behind the Manchester clubs. Indeed, the team averages 60% possession. Yet, they’re in last place.
Why? Defender Jan Paul van Hecke has the team’s highest xG (expected goals coefficient): 0.86. Meanwhile, striker Dominic Solanke has an xG of 0.67 and hasn’t scored yet.
In fact, overall, Tottenham sits in 16th place in the EPL in terms of overall xG. In other words, the team scored 2 goals, but could’ve got 5. This suggests that their place in the league table is just slightly worse than it could be.
What do all these stats prove? To my mind, they show that De Zerbi’s brought in players that can keep the ball. However, the team simply hasn’t registered many chances as teams are happy to sit back and wait for Spurs to make a mistake.
Modern Tottenham in Attack
Ideally, De Zerbi wants his team to patiently build from the back, and then break at speed with direct passes toward the flanks or the striker.
Sandro Tonali was brought in because of his ability to move further down the pitch when building from the back. He’s supposed to pick up the ball and play those vertical passes. I talked before about how successful these have been.
Tottenham, nearly always, attacks down the flanks. Wingers are supposed to cross the ball toward strikers Dominic Solanke, Richarlison or Marmoush.
This plan is also one of the reasons why Omar Marmoush was transferred from Manchester City, and why he’s often been deployed in the centre of the pitch. During the build-up play, Marmoush’s positional awareness should allow him to pick up the ball, and his excellent passing abilities should provide the opportunity to pass on the flanks. Mathys Tel and Savinho are pacey wingers with good crossing stats in previous campaigns.
Why aren’t these plans working so far? In my opinion, the first answer is that teams are prepared for De Zerbi’s passing style better than before.
Secondly, I also strongly feel that Tottenham’s spending spree in the Summer brought them good, but not great, players because of the newfound status of the club. Tonali, for example, is a good passer of the ball, sure. But do his records with Newcastle or Italy show he’s a winner?
What’s Next for De Zerbi and Tottenham?
There’s no denying that Roberto De Zerbi is a forward-thinking, attack-minded manager. Is he a good recruiter? And does he have a backup plan when things go wrong? That remains to be seen.
I don’t think Tottenham has been quite as bad as its league position suggests. However, I also don’t see colossal progress over last season.
Should Spurs fail to quickly move out of the relegation area, De Zerbi’s job may be in danger and, with it, Tottenham’s massive player investments.
That said, De Zerbi’s plan may become something his players are more familiar with over time. Either way, the outcome will become evident soon enough.
