De Zerbi’s New Spurs: The Rise of 'Bomba' Signings
Tottenham boss Roberto De Zerbi leans back, smiles, and drops the word that has become the soundtrack to Spurs’ summer.
“Savio is ‘bomba’. All players we brought, I think are ‘bomba’!”
For a club that only just scrambled clear of relegation a few months ago, “bomba” has come at a price. Around £380m has been poured into eight first-team signings, a full-scale rebuild driven by a head coach who demanded – and got – heavyweight reinforcements.
In De Zerbi’s world, “bomba” isn’t just social media slang. It’s his seal of approval.
“In my vocabulary ‘bomba’ is a great player,” he tells Sky Sports News’ Michael Bridge ahead of Saturday Night Football against Newcastle. The grin says the rest.
De Zerbi’s new Spurs: money, motivation and “bombas”
The Italian is plainly delighted, but he keeps circling back to one theme: desire.
“I’m very happy. We brought all very good players. Especially because they wanted to come,” he says. “I want players proud and happy to stay here. To play football now you need big motivation, big ambitions. Without that part it’s impossible to make results.”
This is not a manager content just to collect names. He wants buy-in. He wants hunger.
“At the moment we have a great squad, a great team,” he continues. “Maybe we have to close with another player but we have to sell a couple of players. But we can consider us very, very happy.”
Spurs have been busy, but this doesn’t feel like a scattergun spree. It feels like a coach being handed the tools he loudly requested after dragging the club over the line last season.
The phone calls that changed minds
Several of those new signings have already spoken about De Zerbi’s influence before pen met paper – the late-night calls, the energy, the clarity of his ideas.
Ask him about it and he shrugs it off.
“Nothing special,” he insists. “I live off passion. I live for football. I explain our project – not my project – and we were lucky because they accepted and we’re very happy and proud.”
He may play it down, but the evidence suggests otherwise. When he arrived, Spurs were staring into the abyss. Survival was not guaranteed. Seven weeks later, they were safe.
The final-day win over Everton, and the wild scenes that followed, are still vivid for him.
“Big emotion, big memories,” he says. “I think it was maybe the best day in my career.
“Not because of the target. We stayed up with Tottenham. But because they were seven weeks very tough, many emotions. The players deserved to stay up.”
From escape act to expectation
That great escape is now the baseline, not the benchmark. De Zerbi knows the Premier League offers no credit for what went before. Every point must be earned again.
The reminder came fast.
On the opening weekend of this season, his revamped Spurs were overrun by Brentford at the Gtech. New signings on the pitch, same old problems in the scoreline: overwhelmed, outplayed, outfought.
They cannot afford a repeat against Newcastle under the lights.
“The name of the players are not crucial,” De Zerbi says pointedly. “To make results you have to fight, run, play well. But as a start, I think it’s very important [to have signed such quality].”
The message is clear. Big fees and big reputations don’t win games on their own.
Patience, chemistry and a first home test
De Zerbi accepts that this much change comes with a cost: time. Time for partnerships to form. Time for a new dressing room to understand each other’s instincts.
“The patience is to find the connection, the balance between the players,” he explains. “To give organisation you have to know the characteristics of your team-mates and the connection is not so fast to reach.”
He doesn’t hide from the Brentford performance either.
“In Brentford we had the quality and have to compete better. They deserved to win the game, we deserved to lose the game, we didn’t play well but we could play much better anyway.”
That honesty cuts through the optimism. Spurs have spent like a club with serious ambitions. Now they have to play like one.
Saturday night brings their first Premier League home game of the campaign, a new-look team walking out in front of a fanbase that has suffered, then dared to dream again.
The money has been spent. The “bombas” have arrived. Now comes the real test: can De Zerbi turn this explosive summer into something far more enduring?
