{"id":527119,"date":"2026-04-12T16:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T16:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/527119\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T16:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T16:27:08","slug":"tottenham-and-de-zerbi-sink-deeper-into-mire-after-sunderlands-stroke-of-luck-premier-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/527119\/","title":{"rendered":"Tottenham and De Zerbi sink deeper into mire after Sunderland\u2019s stroke of luck | Premier League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thirty minutes before kick-off Roberto De Zerbi wandered on to the pitch with his black padded gilet zipped high to the neck in the face of a chill Wearside wind. By the final whistle that stiff breeze had dropped a little but so, too, had the morale of Tottenham and their new manager. In cementing the visitors\u2019 position in the bottom three with six games to go, Nordi Mukiele\u2019s second half winner ensured R\u00e9gis Le Bris\u2019s Sunderland<\/a> rose to 10th. De Zerbi\u2019s unusually subdued body language suggested he was shivering inside.<\/p>\n

Those Tottenham officials who patronised their promoted Stadium of Light counterparts with talk of a one season top tier stay at pre-season Premier League<\/a> meetings must wonder how they got things so horribly wrong.<\/p>\n

De Zerbi, Tottenham\u2019s third manager of a season, wants his Tottenham players to turn back time and reprise the high risk attacking football they played under Ange Postecoglou. On this low octane evidence that remains very much an aspiration.<\/p>\n

First though they need to recover from the Tudor age but the good news for their new manager here was that Antonin Kinsky \u2013 recalled for the first time since his kamikaze 17-minute cameo at the start of his team\u2019s 5-2 Champions League defeat at Atl\u00e9tico Madrid \u2013 appeared on a potential redemption arc. Despite fate decreeing that his afternoon would end painfully \u2013 and early \u2013 after a second-half head injury necessitated his replacement with the inexperienced Brandon Austin, Kinsky could at least hold that heavily bandaged head high as Spurs boarded their return flight to London.<\/p>\n

With Guglielmo Vicario recovering from hernia surgery, Kinsky knew Sunderland would aim to unnerve him at every opportunity. Sure enough Granit Xhaka swiftly unleashed a viciously inswinging corner clearly intended to test the visiting goalkeeper\u2019s reflexes but Kinsky responded by palming it calmly over the bar.<\/p>\n

Tottenham briefly thought they had won a penalty after Omar Alderete\u2019s perceived foul on Randal Kolo Muani but replays showed that Alderete had won the ball with the Tottenham forward throwing a leg out in an attempt to force a spot kick.<\/p>\n

Nordi Mukiele\u2019s goal leaves Tottenham anchored in the bottom three. Photograph: Scott Heppell\/Reuters<\/p>\n

If it was no surprise that the referee, Rob Jones, reversed that decision after a video assistant referee review, Kolo Muani was left to reflect that, had he only played it straight, the subsequent, late sliding challenge from Luke O\u2019Nien that left him sandwiched between the two defenders might have prefaced a legitimate penalty.<\/p>\n

Although Richarlison sporadically glittered in the visiting attack he failed to make the most of a couple of half chances as Sunderland edged a tight first half. While Micky van de Ven and his co defenders struggled to cope with Brian Brobbey\u2019s formidable attacking physicality the Dutch centre forward best described as a human bulldozer failed to make the most of Enzo Le F\u00e9e\u2019s clever passes and, bar one fine save from Brobbey, Kinsky remained relatively untested.<\/p>\n

Not that De Zerbi appeared exactly enamoured with his new charges. When Dominic Solanke\u2019s less than incisive finishing touch after Alderete deflected a cross into his path allowed Robin Roefs to save a golden chance in first-half stoppage time, the Italian pulled the hood of his black gilet so high over his head that it covered his eyes. Perhaps deciding the view was simply too painful to contemplate De Zerbi kept it there for a while.<\/p>\n

It took a tremendous block on O\u2019Nien\u2019s part to deny Richarlison a goal after Lucas Bergvall had bisected Le Bris\u2019s defence but Tottenham were struggling to exert Roefs on his return to Sunderland\u2019s first XI from injury.<\/p>\n

Mukiele was also back at right-back after a spell on the sidelines and, on the hour, the former Paris Saint-Germain defender blemished Kinsky\u2019s afternoon. It was not the goalkeeper\u2019s fault that Mukiele\u2019s 20-yard shot, dispatched after he cut in from the right, utterly changed direction after taking the heftiest of deflections off Van de Ven but he looked as if he could have done without the resultant despair.<\/p>\n

As the debate as to whether that strike should be recorded as Mukiele\u2019s or a Van de Ven own goal continued, the challenge facing De Zerbi grew when Brobbey\u2019s push prefaced a wince inducing collision between Kinsky and Cristian Romero. It, in turn led, to the withdrawl of both players, the latter in tears, nursing a leg injury \u2013 not to mention fury on De Zerbi\u2019s part that Brobbey, already booked, was not shown a second yellow card.<\/p>\n

By now a raft of visiting substitutes were on the pitch but, still, Tottenham struggled to ask Le Bris\u2019s defence many searching questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thirty minutes before kick-off Roberto De Zerbi wandered on to the pitch with his black padded gilet zipped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-527119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}