Is it time to hit the panic button at Tottenham? While Roberto De Zerbi was able to save the club from relegation after joining with just over a month remaining in the 2025-26 season, things to start his full campaign in charge couldn't be going much worse. Even the most die-hard fans were streaming out of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium when Nicolas Jackson scored his second goal in an Aston Villa's victory on Saturday. While the scoreline ended 3-2, it was never that close, as Spurs notched their first two goals of the season after the game was functionally over.
Despite exorbitant spending to retool the squad during the summer, it took until the 86th minute for Conor Gallagher to score Tottenham's first Premier League goal this season when they were already trailing by three. It's a goal that only counts for so much, finishing the fifth game of the season with two points and a minus six goal difference. It's funny, because previously defense was the issue, and after the arrival of Andrew Robertson and Jan Paul Van Hecke, it has performed about league average despite what conceding three goals against Aston Villa may lead one to believe. Seriously, look at Villa's shot chart:
There's only so much that can be done to stop worldies and deflections from going into the net, but when integrating 10 new players, the slightest lack of balance leads to more issues. One mistake becomes five, and just like that the vortex has expanded. This club has been in relegation races for two seasons running, so larger systemic questions crop up that De Zerbi has to fix. Part of the deal when he came in was that he'd want the power to address them.
He got the control that he asked for, with talented young players such as Mikey Moore, Will Lankshear, and Luka Vuskovic now elsewhere, and Premier League-proven players coming in at great expense. If there's any silver lining, it's that the squad did keep pushing and scored first Gallagher's goal and then another against Villa, but at that point it was also a case of too little, too late. Only so much can be chalked up to injuries and needing to make a squad in the manager's image when some of these issues have persisted no matter who the manager is. While luck also plays a part in soccer, if one thing is clear, it's that the finishing of this Tottenham squad isn't good enough. They've scored twice from an xG of 4.59 with no player accounting for an xG of 1.
With a three-week international break looming, De Zerbi has a lot to think about, while Tottenham leadership will also need to determine if he's the right man to lead the club forward. Having gone through three managers, all with different playing styles in the last year, it's hard to say that simply firing De Zerbi will fix all of this, because it's a squad in need of an identity. They want to control the match, but when no one is turning a line-breaking pass into a shot, what's even the point of holding possession?.
Only three teams have created more line-breaking passes than Tottenham into the final third with 98, but only seven of those have led to a shot, which is joint 12th currently and likely to end closer to 15th by the international break due to Spurs having played a game more than others around them. Their style of play is right where De Zerbi wants it to be, but issues like this are created by a lack of cohesion, which can only be fixed with time together. In five matches played this season, Tottenham have yet to run out the same XI in back-to-back games, only making it harder to find that cohesion.
De Zerbi should be on a short leash, but when considering the overall situation, these are conditions that any manager would struggle to change in the immediate term. Long-term, much is expected, and that's why he was given what he asked for in the transfer window, but you can't take a side from staving off relegation into contenders overnight. Some of that comes with the expectation that Tottenham will be around the European places because that's what they've done in previous seasons, but it's also time to dial those back in what is clearly a transition season.
If the front office thinks that De Zerbi is the person who can fix this issue, then he should be given time. If they don't think he's that guy, then they never should've backed him in the transfer market to begin with. But when looking at the biggest issues plaguing the squad, time will help fix them ahead of their next league match against Manchester United. Going into the international break in the relegation zone isn't something that anyone would've wanted at this stage of the season, but this is a squad that can finish closer to the European places once they figure out how to play together.
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