Two 17th-place finishes, and a manager with a full pre-season
Tottenham have finished 17th in each of the last two Premier League seasons. That is the context Roberto De Zerbi inherited when he arrived with seven games left last term and steered the club clear of relegation. He has since had a full summer, a rebuilt squad and, by his own account, the time he lacked to install his ideas.
The bill came to £185 million for a midfield pairing alone, Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes. Marcos Senesi and Jan Paul van Hecke arrived in defence, Andy Robertson at left-back, Antonín Kinsky in goal. Cristian Romero, Djed Spence and Guglielmo Vicario went the other way.
Availability drove much of that recruitment. Van Hecke, Senesi, Tonali and Fernandes made 36, 37, 35 and 36 Premier League appearances respectively out of a possible 38 last season. Spurs lost most of a campaign to knee injuries in 2025-26 and to muscle problems the year before.
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The goals are the problem nobody has solved
Tottenham scored 48 goals last season and conceded 57. The concession figure was their best in four years. Set-pieces accounted for 39.6% of their goals and 36.9% of their expected goals, the highest share in the division, with João Palhinha, Romero and Micky van de Ven among the top scorers. Palhinha and Romero have both left the club.
Spurs open at home to Brentford on Saturday with Dominic Solanke, Dejan Kulusevski, Mohammed Kudus, Xavi Simons and Wilson Odobert all unavailable. Behind Richarlison, the only fit senior attackers are Mikey Moore, 19, and Mathys Tel, 21. No attacking signing has arrived.
One structural advantage does exist. Spurs have no European football for only the second time in 17 seasons. The other occasion was 2023-24, when they finished fifth, two points short of the Champions League places.
A win-now pivot with recent history against it
De Zerbi pushed the club away from its youth-first recruitment model, and the sales of Luka Vuskovic and Will Lankshear, plus reports of Lucas Bergvall looking for an exit, have not gone down well with supporters. Tottenham tried the win-now route before, with José Mourinho and then Antonio Conte, and neither spell delivered.
The tactical question sits underneath all of it. De Zerbi’s Brighton conceded 53 goals finishing sixth in 2022-23 and 62 the season after. Senesi topped the Premier League last term for long balls attempted (477) and completed (182), so the pragmatism that kept Spurs up remains available to him. Whether he reaches for it is another matter.
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