Tottenham's Rebuild Under De Zerbi Takes Shape
Tottenham have not tried to pretend last season didn’t happen. Seventeenth. Surviving by their fingernails. A club that once talked about titles suddenly staring over the edge.
The response has been blunt: spend, reshape, restart.
Roberto De Zerbi has walked into a dressing room that looks less like a tweak and more like a clear-out in progress. Big money has gone into the spine of the side. Mateus Fernandes arrives from West Ham to add legs and bite in midfield, Sandro Tonali from Newcastle to bring control and pedigree. From Brighton, De Zerbi has taken a trusted lieutenant, centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke, to anchor his defensive rebuild.
Around them, a new layer of experience has been added without a transfer fee in sight. Andy Robertson at full-back, Marcos Senesi at centre-back, Martin Dubravka in goal – all on frees, all with enough miles on the clock to steady a team that flirted dangerously with the drop.
This is not a gentle evolution. It’s surgery.
“Big players, but with soul”
Speaking in Sydney on Spurs’ pre-season tour, De Zerbi made it clear he is not interested in assembling a gallery of names without a heartbeat.
He wants something sharper than that.
He talked about “a new team with the qualities, with big players, but with soul, with passion, with all the values we have”. For him, the job doesn’t begin when the whistle blows. It starts long before.
“Football now is not just on the pitch, it's not just with the ball,” the Italian said. “It's before, it's in life. It's how many hours during the day you think about your job.”
The message to his squad is obvious: talent alone will not be enough. Not after last year.
Winning start in Auckland
On the pitch, the first hints of this new Tottenham surfaced in New Zealand on Sunday. Against A-League champions Auckland FC, Spurs opened their tour with a lively 2-0 win, courtesy of goals from Dane Scarlett and Richarlison.
The result mattered less than the structure. De Zerbi began with a clutch of younger players, giving the academy and fringe options a platform. Then, in the final half-hour, the tone changed. On came Fernandes. On came Richarlison, Conor Gallagher, Ben Davies. Suddenly it looked closer to a Premier League side, and the control followed.
They scored, they managed the game, and, crucially, they stayed intact.
“We didn't concede, we didn't suffer any injuries and this is big news, important news, especially for the beginning of the season,” De Zerbi said. For a coach trying to drill new ideas into a reshaped group, a clean sheet and a clean bill of health in the first outing is as close to ideal as it gets.
Next up is Sydney FC on Wednesday, before a more searching examination against Chelsea in the same city three days later. Pre-season friendlies rarely define a campaign, but for a team under construction, they reveal plenty about who is adapting and who is drifting.
More to come in the market
Even with the influx of Fernandes, Tonali, Van Hecke, Robertson, Senesi and Dubravka, De Zerbi does not sound like a man finished with the market.
He hinted that Spurs will keep pushing until the window shuts.
“I think we can be happier at the end of this transfer market because I spoke a lot of time with the owner, with the board and they want to build a very strong team for this season, to make the days for the future become great again,” he said.
The ambition is clear: no more flirtation with the bottom three, no more nervous final days. Tottenham want to move back towards the sharp end of the table, and they are paying – and planning – accordingly.
The new campaign starts on August 22. By then, De Zerbi expects his squad to be stronger, his ideas more ingrained, his dressing room more aligned with his demands for obsession and intensity.
Spurs escaped once. The question now is whether this aggressive rebuild turns a relegation near-miss into the foundation of something far more serious.
