With Spurs’ confidence on the floor, how does Roberto De Zerbi pick his players up?

Tottenham Hotspur have not found themselves in this position overnight.

While their marvellous home has become a destination for world-famous pop stars, NFL events, and boxing title fights, the football team hasn’t been built with the same care and attention. As with most poorly built constructions, it has been compromised by long-term defects that no one has invested time or money to fix.

Tottenham are one point away from the relegation zone with seven league games remaining. By the time they next kick a ball, they may have slipped into the bottom three, with 18th-placed West Ham United facing bottom-side Wolves this evening (Friday).

That in itself could prove a huge psychological hurdle to overcome as reality sinks in — if it hasn’t already — that relegation is the trajectory of this team unless matters quickly change on the pitch.

Every hopeful Spurs fan travelling to the Stadium of Light for Sunday’s match against Sunderland will be able to name their main culprit for the club’s plummet. But whether that blame lies with former executive chairman Daniel Levy, the controlling Lewis family, sporting director Johan Lange and chief executive officer Vinai Venkatesham, previous managers, or the players, the job now falls to Roberto De Zerbi to lift them out of this mess.

So how can De Zerbi pick this Spurs side up off the floor, with form hard to find and confidence only getting worse as the bottom three come into view?

In 2013, Rick Pitino, who has led the New York Knicks and Boston Celtics among many professional and college basketball teams in a 52-year coaching career, published a book titled ‘The One-Day Contract: How to Add Value to Every Minute of Your Life’.

The principle in the book is simple: if you were only hired for tomorrow based on your performance today, would you get the job? It focuses on accountability, maximising performance and reaching your potential daily, therefore allowing the long-term outcome to take care of itself.

And according to Tom Bates, a performance psychologist with experience at several Premier League clubs and the Team GB Olympic team, subscribing to this mindset can make or break the season’s final weeks for a side in a relegation battle.

“It takes a very grounded sense of accountability for what it actually is that we are going to do every day, no matter what, and set new standards which do not rely on talent, but effort,” says Bates, who is also a UEFA A-Licenced football coach.

“It’s not going to be talent that gets them out of this situation; it’s going to be a collective group effort. Creating an almost miniature culture — something that they can sign up to and can all be accountable to. It’s a renewed standard, a contract for the end of the season.”

Bates adds that, while the prospect of relegation can be all-encompassing, Tottenham’s players cannot allow themselves to be motivated by the fear of failure.

“It’s not about blame,” says Bates. “There’s always a big temptation for teams to find scapegoats when things don’t go well. People start to blame other people, players, teams, and coaches — self-preservation takes centre stage, and it becomes about survival.

“Survival and the fear of failure don’t mean thriving or flourishing; survival means taking care of No 1. It shifts the blame onto somebody else and means you avoid taking risks.

“Survival is the opposite of flourishing and thriving. Surviving is insecure: ‘I just need to get my head down, and avoid making mistakes and putting my head above the parapet’. But to grow and improve, we have to be courageously vulnerable together, and that’s not about pointing fingers at whoever makes a mistake. That’s about celebrating the courage of someone who actually tries to move this thing forward, regardless of the outcome.

Darren Anderton, who made 358 appearances for the club across 12 years, was part of two Spurs sides that came close to relegation (1993-94 and 1997-98). Naturally, some of his team-mates went into survival mode, but Anderton took inspiration from someone who didn’t: Vinny Samways.

“I remember a game at White Hart Lane under Ossie (Ardiles in 1994), and Vinny Samways was playing deep centre-midfield, getting on the ball for fun,” Anderton, who played with Samways between 1992 and 1994, tells The Athletic.

“He gave the ball away a couple of times, and the crowd were booing every time he got the ball. But he kept getting the ball and tried to make things happen. And by the end of the game, the crowd would give him a standing ovation, because he was brave. He didn’t hide.

“I remember being in awe of the way he did that, for someone to continue going with the crowd on his back. And that is what is needed: bravery.”

Whether De Zerbi is the character to inspire his players into this growth mindset remains to be seen.

Bates has worked at multiple clubs in the top flight and believes that, compared with other organisations and sports, football has an insecurity issue. “When things go wrong, people hide,” he says.

But for all of the debates around his appointment, De Zerbi has rarely been accused of hiding.

His desire to obsess over details, micro-managing to the nth degree, is a theme of his coaching career and is evident in training at Hotspur Way, where he is already advising players on body position and angles, aiming to inspire confidence in their on-ball abilities.

In his first interview with the club, De Zerbi has also demonstrated a willingness to operate slightly differently, saying: “We have no time to work too much on more principles, but we have to know what we have to do on the pitch. We have to have a good organisation on the pitch with the ball, without the ball.”

While Igor Tudor’s back-to-basics mentality did not inspire much from his players in his short period in charge, those principles may retain some merit under De Zerbi, who can build on that with tactical expertise.

“The main principles are to find a system that suits your best players,” Tony Pulis, who stabilised Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion in the Premier League as head coach, tells The Athletic. “Then concentrate on being very compact up and down and across the pitch. Play safe in your own final third, and realise that a team — and being a team — wins you games.

“That means the team running hard for 90 minutes, in and out of possession.”

‘Knowing what your job is and doing it’ seems straightforward, but Tottenham have lacked that direction for the majority of the season. Shifting the team’s mindset, perhaps by helping them buy into the ‘one-day contract’ attitude, may prove crucial if Spurs are to remain in the Premier League.