Tottenham's Disastrous Start: De Zerbi's Team Struggles

Tottenham’s season started with a thud, not a bang. A 3-0 defeat at Brentford, a flat, disjointed performance, and a head coach who walked into the press room with no attempt to sugar-coat it.

“We are not a team yet,” Roberto De Zerbi said. He repeated the line, in different ways, all night. It was the theme of the evening.

A brutal opening day

The damage began early. On 12 minutes, Spurs were sliced open far too easily. New Brentford signing Mamadou Sangare drifted into the box with time to look up and square. Keane Lewis-Potter, in even more space, side-footed home. No pressure, no bite, no structure.

The second goal summed up Tottenham’s chaos. Poor hold-up play from Richarlison surrendered possession, Lucas Bergvall then lost it again, and Mathias Jensen pounced. Antonin Kinsky pushed out Jensen’s effort, but only as far as Vitaly Janelt, who tapped in. Spurs’ back line froze, Brentford didn’t.

Within four minutes of the restart, the opening day had turned into a full-blown embarrassment. Sangare’s shot squeezed through a crowd, Kinsky parried, and Michael Kayode reacted quickest, smashing into the roof of the net for 3-0. Tottenham looked stunned, Brentford ruthless.

It could have been worse. Rodrigo Bentancur tripped Kevin Schade in the box, Brentford won a penalty, and Igor Thiago stepped up. He slammed his spot-kick against the left post and the rebound flew clear. A rare escape in a game that offered almost none.

“We are late for the start of the Premier League”

De Zerbi didn’t hide behind excuses, but he did spell out the context.

“For many reasons. I think we are not a team yet,” he said. “We are not in the right point in physical condition for a lot of reasons.”

He pointed to players returning late after international duty and a disrupted pre-season trip to Australia, where travel and risk management limited proper work. He insisted those were “not excuses”, calling them “the normal situation when you are building a new project, a new process”.

He knew this was coming. “After the Hoffenheim game, I said we are not in the right point, we are late for the start of the Premier League,” he admitted. “But it’s a step, we have to improve quickly.”

What stung him most was not just the scoreline, but the manner of the defeat.

“We could fight stronger than we did today,” he said. “We lost too many duels, we made too many mistakes in the timing when we wanted to push the pressure higher. We arrived second for the second ball, we didn’t win one second ball, one duel, one tackle, and it’s tough.”

Kids, mistakes and a long-term plan

De Zerbi leaned heavily on the age profile of his side. Tottenham finished with a line that looked like a project, not a polished product.

“If you analyse everything, you can find that we played with one 2007, one 2006,” he said, referring to the likes of Mikey Moore and Mathys Tel. Bergvall, just 20, was at the heart of the second Brentford goal but still earned his manager’s backing.

“I think he didn’t play bad today, even if I substituted him at half-time,” De Zerbi said. “Lucas Bergvall in the next two years, he will not lose that ball in that moment of the game. But there are steps to become better.”

That is the tension at the heart of this Tottenham project. Results now versus growth later.

“We go, and we try to build something good for the club,” he said. “We need also Archie Gray, we need also Lucas Bergvall, or we work for today. And tomorrow, I don’t know.”

He stuck to his belief in the club’s direction.

“I don’t change idea, I think we are working well as a club, as a project. We need the time, like the big teams have done in the last 10 years.”

A new back line, a new midfield, no chemistry

De Zerbi contrasted the side that finished last season with the one that crumbled at Brentford.

“If you analyse last season, the defensive line: Porro, Danso, Micky van de Ven and Udogie,” he said. “And today, Archie Gray, JP van Hecke, Senesi and Robertson. Four new players.”

The same story in midfield.

“Two midfielders, Rodrigo Bentancur and Palhinha,” he said of last season. “Today, two midfielders, Bergvall… Why not Bentancur? Because he came late in the pre-season. In the pre-season we worked with Lucas Bergvall.”

He accepted the risk of starting a 20-year-old in a game of this intensity.

“At the beginning of the season, at the beginning of the new project, it was good, it was right to play with Lucas Bergvall,” he said. “But I knew before the game, Lucas Bergvall, in this type of game, maybe he could suffer more than Rodrigo Bentancur, nine years older, and Lucas, 20.”

He made that call anyway, in line with the club’s longer-term vision.

“For today, I agree,” he said. “For the plan, for the project, what the club wants and what we are, in the direction we are working, I think is the normal process. Even though we are suffering for the defeat, we are shocking for this defeat, especially for the way we lost the game. Because they deserve to win and we played very, very bad.”

“We didn’t show the soul”

If there was one line that cut through, it was this: “We didn’t show the soul.”

De Zerbi had spoken on the eve of the season about two non-negotiables in his “home”: soul and style of play.

“And today, we didn’t show the soul, and we didn’t show the quality of the play,” he said. “With the ball and without the ball.”

Until those two conditions appear, he warned, Spurs will suffer.

“When we find these two conditions, I think we can become dangerous for everyone, every team. Until we don’t arrive, we don’t reach these conditions, we have to suffer. And today, I think it’s important for us, this defeat, because maybe we woke up stronger than we thought, maybe.”

Archie Gray, versatility and underperformance

Archie Gray, pressed into duty at full-back, endured a tough afternoon, but De Zerbi refused to single him out.

“Archie Gray can play as a full-back, as a midfielder,” he said. “But I think he’s much better than his performance today. But not just Archie Gray, also JP van Hecke, Sandro Tonali, Richarlison, everyone. We didn’t play a good game.”

He made clear there would be no snap judgements.

“We can’t change our idea on Archie Gray for today, or for Richarlison or Mathys Tel.”

How long will it take?

The obvious question followed: how long until this team finds a rhythm? Before the international break? Before Newcastle next week?

“We need time,” De Zerbi replied, “but I think we are much better than we showed today. So from Wednesday we can show our qualities, and we can show who we are.”

He then circled back to his central message.

“Even if we win Wednesday or next Saturday, we need time to become a team. Because to become a team we need time. We need time, we have to analyse the situation, we have to understand the situation. The improvement we have to do, every one of us, because we lose and we win together.”

Set-pieces and physical battles

Tottenham were a major threat from set-pieces last season, with Cristian Romero and Palhinha key figures. Both were missing here, and the question came: how are Spurs reshaping that part of their game?

“Listen, Brentford in set-pieces are maybe the best team in the Premier League. So it’s normal to suffer,” De Zerbi said. “I think we suffer more the duels, more the second ball than the set-pieces.”

That was the story of the afternoon: not just being beaten tactically, but being overpowered in the basics.

De Zerbi left west London insisting he still believes in his players, his club and himself. The project, he argued, is on the right track. The problem is simple and brutal: the Premier League rarely waits for projects.