How Spurs convinced Roberto De Zerbi to become their head coach and how close they came to Marco Silva

There have been so many moments and junctures this season that felt like they could be pivotal, weeks where it has felt like the future of Tottenham Hotspur has been at stake. And yet, for now at least, almost all of those weeks pale into insignificance compared to what has happened since Spurs were beaten 3-0 at home by Nottingham Forest on March 22.

The surprise is not that Igor Tudor was relieved of his duties one week after the Forest game. That had felt inevitable all week, given the stakes of that match and how Spurs wilted — yet again — after going 1-0 down. His 44-day, seven-game tenure never got off the ground. He was never able to give Spurs what they truly needed; new ideas, new energy, a new direction back up the table.

But most people 10 days ago would have expected Tottenham to replace Tudor with another interim appointment, someone else to jump aboard the sinking ship, repair it, sail it to safer waters before handing over the wheel to someone else in the summer.

If they could just find someone who combined Tudor’s pragmatism and with more knowledge of the Premier League, or more knowledge of Spurs, and bring everyone together, then they might be able to find a route out of this.

What no one really expected was for Tottenham to ignore the very concept of a firefighter and instead go for the polar opposite.

They have not gone for pragmatism, but for one of the most ideological managers of his era. They have not gone for easily learnable football, but for an infamously complicated playing style.

They have not gone for a uniter, but a controversial figure who already has a section of the fanbase campaigning against him. They have not gone for a safe pair of hands, but one of the most notoriously combustible figures in the game. And they have not given him another short-term deal, but a five-year one.

Under different circumstances, Tottenham’s decision to appoint Roberto De Zerbi would have made perfect sense. Spurs first considered him as far back as summer 2023, when they appointed Ange Postecoglou from Celtic instead. Like Postecoglou, De Zerbi guarantees an attractive, original style of the sort Tottenham have always wanted.

But appointing De Zerbi now, with Spurs in such a perilous position in the league and at risk of relegation, is one of the biggest managerial risks any team has taken in years.

The fascinating thing about this appointment is that the risk does not only belong to Spurs. When you are one point ahead of the relegation zone with seven games left, anything you do is a risk. Spurs have not had a risk-free option all season.

But De Zerbi, less than two months on from his departure from Marseille, could easily have chosen to spend the next few months on holiday waiting for his next job. And that was his initial intention when Spurs first approached him. But in the end, he has decided to jump aboard the ship.

The road to De Zerbi’s appointment at Tottenham did not just start with the defeat by Forest. He had been in Tottenham’s thinking for some time. Spurs sacked Thomas Frank on the same day — February 11 — that De Zerbi left Marseille by mutual consent.

Fabio Paratici, who by this point had left Spurs for Fiorentina, had argued the case internally for pursuing De Zerbi. But the timing did not work out, with the ink barely dry on De Zerbi’s Marseille separation. He wanted to wait. Tottenham ended up going for another Paratici recommendation, another former Marseille manager: Tudor.

The logic made sense. Tudor had a good track record with short-term jobs. He had a focus on fitness and organisation which Spurs needed. He had the aura that comes from having been a top player himself. If he could keep the club in the Premier League, they could go into a much richer managerial marketplace in the summer. It could have been a more natural way to land someone like De Zerbi.

But it simply did not work. Tudor was not able to lift the confidence of the players and get the quick bounce that everyone had hoped for. Tudor’s Spurs lost their first four games, but the third and fourth of those were disastrous: they conceded three goals in 12 minutes in a 3-1 home defeat by Crystal Palace, and then were 4-0 down inside 22 minutes at Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. It was clear that something needed to change.

With the Tudor experiment failing, Tottenham knew that they needed to try something else. And not another interim either. They had tried that and it had not worked.

They decided to look again for an elite manager, someone proven who could come in, make an instant impact, keep Spurs up, and then build into the future. They knew that it was a hard time to appoint a manager, with the threat of relegation looming so large. This is a job opening with a significant downside risk.

So earlier this month, Tottenham started to think about who they might get to replace Tudor, not another interim but a big-name permanent appointment. De Zerbi was always their first choice, although they also had to explore the possibility of backup options in case they were unable to land their top target. They tried to get De Zerbi in the middle of March, so that he, rather than Tudor, could have the Nottingham Forest game. But the answer was still no.

But he was not the only candidate Spurs were looking at. There was another manager on their radar, someone who was proven in the Premier League, someone who Spurs had looked very hard at more than once before. And that was Marco Silva at Fulham.

This is Silva’s fifth season at Fulham and the last on his current contract. He has taken them from the Championship and given them the Premier League permanence they had craved for so long, playing some attractive football while also operating within PSR limitations.

It is a hugely impressive body of work which has naturally attracted some bigger Premier League teams along the way. Tottenham looked at Silva at the end of the 2022-23 season, and he got down to the last three candidates before the club eventually went for Postecoglou.

Then, at the end of last season, when Postecoglou was on his way out, Spurs looked at Silva again. By the end of the process, it was either him or Thomas Frank. And Spurs went with Frank.

The question was whether, now in March 2026, at the third time of asking, Silva might finally end up in north London. Tottenham never made an official approach, but explored the possibility via intermediaries. The indications were that Silva’s camp were interested in the opportunity. As it stands, remember, Silva is out of contract in a few weeks’ time. Tottenham might have offered him a better deal long into the future.

But the decisive factor was Fulham’s own stance. They would not countenance losing their popular manager, their best of the modern era, to a Premier League rival during the course of the season. Certainly not without significant compensation. Fulham still want Silva to sign a new deal.

So even though this never got to the point of an official club-to-club approach, Fulham always knew that ultimately the power lay in their hands. Premier League Rule J.3 states that managers and coaches cannot simply quit one Premier League (or EFL) club and move to another “without the consent” of the club they work for. So Fulham knew that they could effectively block any proposed move.

With Silva off the table, De Zerbi became the sole focus. Tottenham had already been exploring their options before the Forest defeat on March 22, but that focused minds that a change had to be made. And over the course of last week, Spurs slowly started to change De Zerbi’s mind.

Of course, it is inescapable that De Zerbi has had the leverage in negotiations. Tottenham need him more than he needs them. But by the end of last week, the indications were that he could be persuaded to take the job. And it was on Friday evening, as the noise around De Zerbi intensified, that three Tottenham fan groups spoke out publicly against the proposed appointment because of comments that De Zerbi made as Marseille manager in defence of Mason Greenwood.

Tottenham’s eventual offer to De Zerbi was far more generous than you would normally expect for an out-of-work manager with a reputation for volatility and a habit for not staying long in any job: a five-year deal with a salary that makes him one of the best-paid managers in the league.

But that is the reality of Tottenham’s predicament. They are in an unprecedented situation, on the brink of the relegation zone with just seven games left. They have tried a short-term option and only lost more time and more ground in doing so. Now they have gone back into the other direction, aiming high, for the best available manager on the marketplace, with the most exciting style of play.

This time, for the future of Tottenham Hotspur, it has to work.