‘Don’t buy that’ – Roberto De Zerbi’s Tottenham mistake highlighted and historic move queried

Tottenham were even worse than last season in their 3-0 opening-game defeat to Brentford.

That’s the view of former Premier League striker Tony Cascarino who insisted Roberto De Zerbi made a litany of errors with his team selection.

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Spurs fans went into the match with high hopes of a European push but within 45 minutes faced the reality that just improving may be all they can dream of this season.

What happened at Tottenham this summer?

Two successive 17th-place finishes in the Premier League saw them the butt of the jokes this summer.

However, an early transfer spree saw them splash big cash with Sandro Tonali arriving from Newcastle for £100million, Mateus Fernandes from rivals West Ham for £85m, while Jan Paul van Hecke came in from Brighton for £52m.

These were supplemented by the free transfer signings of Andy Robertson and Marcos Senesi, from Liverpool and Bournemouth, respectively.

All but Fernandes, who came on as a substitute, started the game with Brentford.

Tottenham were still without a raft of injured players, including Mohammed Kudus, Xavi Simons, Dejan Kulusevski, and new club captain Micky van de Ven.

What happened to Tottenham against Brentford?

What transpired was a lethargic and sloppy showing which could have turned out a lot worse with the Bees also seeing Igor Thiago miss a penalty and spurning clear chances.

And Cascarino was more than willing to highlight where it all went wrong for Tottenham.

“I picked out a story because the headline struck me,” he said on the Weekend Sports Breakfast.

“It says new season, new players, new dreams. Same old Spurs. That’s wrong, that headline, stated Cascarino.

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Asked why he felt that, he replied: “They’re not the same old Spurs. They’re worse. That headline’s wrong. They’re not the same old Spurs.
They were worse than they were.”

It was put to Cascarino that Tottenham’s summer overhaul, with deals for Savinho and Omar Marmoush from Man City also set to go through, might have held them back – but he dispatched that notion instantly.

“I don’t buy into that,” he replied. “You know what you’re going to get against Brentford. You’re going to get a physical team that are good technically as well.

“They’re going to run over you. They’re going to fight you in headers. You look at the Spurs team that was selected – half of them can’t head the ball and you’re playing against a team that are really dominant at set-pieces.”

Tottenham’s captaincy issue

De Zerbi’s choice of captain for the game, with Van der Ven injured, Pedro Porro only just back after the World Cup, and Ben Davies and James Maddison on the bench, was fifth in line Archie Gray.

In starting as skipper, he broke Steve Perryman’s legendary record of being the club’s youngest-ever captain.

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However, the versatile starlet put up a meek showing in a much-changed backline and Cascarino couldn’t understand him being handed such a big responsibility, especially given his lack of involvement at the end of last season.

He added: “Archie Gray was the captain yesterday.

“I’ve got nothing against Archie Gray but he was a player that didn’t even start the last six games of last season when they survived. And at 20 years old, he’s been named captain.

“Obviously they’ve got no Porro there. Oh I’ll give it to Richarlison. No I’m joking.

“Gallagher? I know he came off and was awful yesterday as well. But even if you bring in a new player like Tonali and you go, ‘Here’s the captain’s armband’.

“I just could not believe what I witnessed yesterday.”

Tottenham must now avoid a banana skin on Wednesday night in the EFL Cup as they take on Charlton, who shocked West Ham on Saturday with a 2-1 win, in north London.