Firefighter? As a tactician, Roberto De Zerbi has always been more of a firestarter.
He likes short goal kicks and pattern build-ups, coupled with man-to-man pressing and a high defensive line. The Italian is dogma personified. Plan B is to do plan A better.
This means all eventualities are possible as he arrives at Tottenham Hotspur with seven matches to save their season and Premier League status. They sit 17th on 30 points, just one point above London rivals West Ham United — who are attempting to scrap their way out of the relegation zone under former Spurs boss Nuno Espirito Santo.
The primary challenge for De Zerbi is to implement his tactics quickly. Spurs showed little attacking identity under previous coach Igor Tudor, who was sacked after just seven matches. His aggressive man-to-man defensive approach did not function with an injury-hit, stretched squad. Teams pulled them apart.
Spurs showed little attacking identity under previous coach Igor Tudor (Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
In opting for De Zerbi, Spurs have completed a full identity cycle with managers.
Replacing Ange Postecoglou with Thomas Frank last summer meant trading unapologetic idealism for a coach who had repeated success at Brentford by being adaptable and flexible. Tudor was a shapeshifter too and experimented — partly out of necessity — with players in unorthodox roles.
De Zerbi, however, is a kindred spirit with Postecoglou. Both are attack-first coaches. That showed in a meeting between them in December 2023. De Zerbi’s 4-4-2 diamond had Brighton 4-0 up after 75 minutes, only to concede two late goals in quick succession. They held on but made a contest out of what should have been a routine win.
There are lessons to be learned from De Zerbi’s time at Brighton, and more recently in Marseille, for how quickly (or not) his tactics can bed in.
He had the luxury of a full pre-season in France, as well as severely lowered expectations. De Zerbi joined after a wretched 2023-24, when Marseille had four different coaches, an eighth-place Ligue 1 finish, lost a Europa League semi-final, and were eliminated from the Champions League in the qualifying rounds.
His vertical attacking and ball-dominant style perfectly suited a club whose motto translates to English as ‘straight to the goal’. In his first press conference, he said he wanted the team to be “recognisable” for his tactical identity from match one.
He got that. Look at the build-up for the opener in their 5-1 away win against Brest in August 2024. Attacking in a 3-4-3, they bait the press. Goalkeeper Geronimo Rulli passes through midfield, skipping out his No 6s and playing to No 10 Luis Henrique. He finds Amine Harit, the spare man. One pass later, they are through Brest and exploit a three-v-three to score.
At that point, though, De Zerbi had been in place for nearly two months and had a stack of talented forwards.
Marseille won four and lost just once in his opening seven matches. That strong start proved to be a launchpad to a second-place finish. Marseille in 2024-25 netted their most goals in a Ligue 1 season for eight years, but also conceded more than the previous three seasons.
Part of their success owes to Ligue 1 being a pressing league filled with many young, upcoming defenders. Opposition teams were slightly easier to play through with quick combinations and teams repeatedly struggled when Marseille enticed the press and hit long balls over them.
Strasbourg’s Djordje Petrovic was the only Ligue 1 goalkeeper to play more passes last season than Rulli. For Spurs’ Guglielmo Vicario and Antonin Kinsky, their demands are going to be much closer to what Postecoglou asked of them.
For the same reason, while at Brighton, De Zerbi switched between Robert Sanchez and Jason Steele, preferring Steele’s ball-playing capabilities to the traditional shot-stopping and cross-claiming qualities of Sanchez.
De Zerbi needed time to implement his ideas at Brighton, though he inherited an in-form side from Graham Potter — they were fourth when the Italian arrived, having won four of the opening six games. A talented squad included Alexis Mac Allister, Leandro Trossard, Pascal Gross and Moises Caicedo, all of whom were later sold to Champions League clubs.
Brighton did not win any of their first five under De Zerbi but his opening match set the tone: a 3-3 draw at Anfield, where Trossard netted a hat-trick and Brighton were 2-0 up after 17 minutes.
Club captain Lewis Dunk said in a September 2023 interview with The Telegraph that the initial weeks of De Zerbi’s coaching were “baffling” and that training “changed dramatically”. A translator gave them instructions and De Zerbi had highly specific demands on which passes to play according to how the opposition pressed.
De Zerbi initially stuck with the 3-4-3 blueprint that Potter used to great effect in 2022, then switched to the 4-2-3-1. That tweak unlocked pacy wingers Solly March and Kaoru Mitoma, as Brighton’s forwards would drop in to drag opposition centre-backs and create central space to exploit with runs in behind.
Things clicked, young striker Evan Ferguson flourished, and with significant late-season away wins over Arsenal and Chelsea, and at home to Manchester United, Brighton finished sixth on 62 points — two club records and a debut European season.
There is good and bad news for Spurs. The upside always with De Zerbi is that he gets an attack firing. Achieving that is significantly harder with limited time. He has the best part of two weeks before Spurs travel to Sunderland.
It was telling in the 3-0 home defeat by relegation rivals Nottingham Forest that Spurs outshot their visitors (14 to 8) but created chances less valuable (based on expected goals) and managed just three shots on target compared to Forest’s seven. There was a severe lack of attacking variety beyond hopeful crosses.
He will offer more tactical consistency — in shape and game plans — than Frank or Tudor too. De Zerbi did switch systems (between 4-2-3-1 and 3-4-3) at Marseille but almost always built up in a 3-2-5 or similar variation, wanting those central overloads.
Where this might become problematic is in central-midfield profiles. There are injuries to Rodrigo Bentancur, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski, the line-breaker types that are needed.
De Zerbi tends to pair a physical profile (think Joao Palhinha or Conor Gallagher) with a technician. At Brighton, he had Mac Allister and Gross, with Caicedo being the chief ball-winner. Former Spurs midfielder Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg was the passer in his Marseille team, and often played with the energetic Adrien Rabiot or Valentin Rongier.
Archie Gray or Lucas Bergvall are the best fits for filling the press-resistant midfielder role. Yves Bissouma may also be a contender in the weeks ahead, although he has featured infrequently this season.
Then there is the glaring issue of the defence. Spurs have shown few box-defending instincts and are too porous. They last kept a Premier League clean sheet on New Year’s Day (a 0-0 draw away at Brentford) and have shipped a league-high 27 goals in the past 13 matches.
Too often, they make errors when playing out and simple basics — like tracking Morgan Gibbs-White or Taiwo Awoniyi’s runs for Forest’s second and third goals — are non-existent. For instance, Spurs’ 148 turnovers in their own third is the most in the division.
That defensive record may not change under De Zerbi. His Brighton side consistently conceded in multiples and Marseille went crashing out of the Champions League this season because they lost their final two league-phase matches 3-0.
Like Tudor, De Zerbi often wants his teams to press man-to-man, though he might be dissuaded by how that has panned out for Spurs recently. With one of the league’s worst injury records too, especially in defence, a physically-demanding style would bring extra risk.
But De Zerbi has always been about high risk for high reward. And he definitely embodies the Spurs motto of: ‘To dare is to do’.