Tottenham Hotspur are pushing to appoint Roberto De Zerbi as the club’s third head coach of the season.
The Italian has been offered a long-term contract and significant financial package which would make him one of the highest paid managers in the Premier League.
While there is currently no agreement between Spurs and De Zerbi, the former Brighton & Hove Albion coach has emerged as the club’s clear first choice to succeed Igor Tudor, who left Spurs by mutual consent on Sunday.
De Zerbi has been out of work since departing Marseille in February after less than two years in charge of the Ligue 1 club.
Spurs’ pursuit of De Zerbi is not without complications. The 46-year-old is interested in the job but would prefer to take over in the summer, provided Spurs remain in the Premier League. Three Spurs fan groups have urged the club not to appoint De Zerbi, citing his backing for former Manchester United striker Mason Greenwood, with whom he worked at Marseille.
Tudor failed to win any of his five Premier League games over 44 days in charge, having been appointed in February on a deal until the end of the season. The Croatian replaced Thomas Frank, who had himself only joined the club in the summer.
If hired, De Zerbi is tasked with saving the club from relegation to the second tier for the first time since 1977. Spurs are 17th in the Premier League, just one point above the relegation zone, and could have slipped into the bottom three by the time they next play, at Sunderland on April 12.
Spurs hope to have a new coach in place in time for the majority of the squad’s return to the training centre after international duty, with the plan for the new man to have around 10 days to work with the players before the visit to the Stadium of Light.
Bruno Saltor, who had been assistant to Tudor, is overseeing Spurs’ training sessions ahead of any new appointment.
At the time of De Zerbi’s Marseille departure, his side were 12 points behind league leaders Paris Saint-Germain, having just lost 5-0 to Luis Enrique’s side, and were eliminated from the Champions League in the league phase.
He left Marseille with a 57 per cent win percentage, higher than any of his 34 predecessors since the turn of the century.
The former Brighton coach previously held talks with Manchester United regarding the possibility of succeeding Erik ten Hag as head coach. He was also considered an unlikely candidate to replace Mauricio Pochettino following his Chelsea departure.
Following spells with Benevento, Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk, De Zerbi was appointed by Brighton in September 2022 following Graham Potter’s exit to Chelsea. He led the club to a sixth-place finish in his first season, earning them a debut Europa League campaign.
While playing for Manchester United, Greenwood was arrested on January 31, 2022 on suspicion of rape and assault, and further arrested on February 1, 2022 on suspicion of sexual assault and making threats to kill.
He was charged in the October with one count of attempted rape, one count of controlling and coercive behaviour and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. All three charges related to the same woman.
Greenwood consistently denied wrongdoing and the charges were discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in early February 2023.
In November 2025, De Zerbi said Greenwood was a “good person” and added: “It saddens me what happened to him because I know a very different person from the one portrayed in England.”