{"id":623274,"date":"2026-05-04T17:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T17:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/623274\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T17:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T17:16:09","slug":"tottenham-hotspur-how-roberto-de-zerbi-brought-life-to-sinking-spurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/623274\/","title":{"rendered":"Tottenham Hotspur: How Roberto de Zerbi brought life to sinking Spurs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">De Zerbi took over a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/tottenham-hotspur\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tottenham<\/a> side struggling for form, confidence and with a series of key players out injured.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But he has already drilled into his side a set of principles that echo what he has done at previous jobs &#8211; albeit adapting them to the quality of his players.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Spurs play short from their keeper but are more willing to go long to a target man in Richarlison than De Zerbi&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/teams\/brighton-and-hove-albion\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brighton<\/a> were.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Given the impressive physicality of the Spurs squad, utilising a high press as a method of chance creation has been smart too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tudor looked to take a similar albeit less coordinated approach out of possession, but De Zerbi has built on that &#8211; not defending man-to-man across the pitch but instead asking his side to pick moments in which to win the ball back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">None of these tactics however are possible without a squad that believes in the message the coach is relaying. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In his news conferences so far, De Zerbi has been focused on one idea &#8211; that Spurs must believe in themselves, and shake off any negativity, if they are to be a Premier League side next season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Their performance against Villa will have certainly helped.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"De Zerbi took over a Tottenham side struggling for form, confidence and with a series of key players&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-623274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}