One month of Roberto De Zerbi’s new-look Tottenham: This is a remarkably confused project

@scope (#mos-cd8d6b8a-09c2-43c9-be9e-9c9556f8276c) { @font-face {
font-family: “Independent Serif”;
src: url(“https://assets.the-independent.com/fonts/Independent-Serif-Medium.woff2”) format(“woff2”);
font-weight: 500;
font-style: normal;
font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
font-family: “Independent Serif”;
src: url(“https://assets.the-independent.com/fonts/Independent-Serif-Regular.woff2”) format(“woff2”);
font-weight: 400;
font-style: normal;
font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
font-family: “Independent Sans”;
src: url(“https://assets.the-independent.com/fonts/Independent-Sans-Regular.woff2”) format(“woff2”);
font-weight: 400;
font-style: normal;
font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
font-family: “Independent Sans”;
src: url(“https://assets.the-independent.com/fonts/Independent-Sans-Medium.woff2”) format(“woff2”);
font-weight: 500;
font-style: normal;
font-display: swap;
}

.bookmark-experience {
box-sizing: border-box;
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
position: fixed;
top: 0;
left: 0;
right: 0;
bottom: 0;
inset: 0;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.55);
z-index: 10000;
padding: 12px;
margin: 0;
}

.bookmark-experience,
.bookmark-experience * {
box-sizing: border-box;
}

.bookmark-experience .modal {
position: relative;
width: 100%;
max-width: 400px;
margin: 0;
padding: 32px 24px 28px;
text-align: center;
color: #ffffff;
background: linear-gradient(90deg, #3b030f 0%, #3b030f 27%, #76071f 52%, #3b030f 100%);
box-shadow: 2px -2px 8px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
}

.bookmark-experience .close-btn {
position: absolute;
top: 12px;
right: 12px;
width: 16px;
height: 16px;
cursor: pointer;
background: none;
border: none;
padding: 0;
}

.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon,
.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon::before,
.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon::after {
display: block;
}

.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon {
position: relative;
width: 16px;
height: 16px;
}

.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon::before,
.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon::after {
content: “”;
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 0;
width: 16px;
height: 1.5px;
background: #ffffff;
}

.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon::before { transform: translateY(-50%) rotate(45deg); }
.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon::after { transform: translateY(-50%) rotate(-45deg); }

.bookmark-experience .logo-row {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
margin: 0 0 24px;
}

.bookmark-experience .logo-premium-image {
display: block;
height: 24px;
width: 272px;
max-width: 86%;
object-fit: contain;
}

.bookmark-experience .headline {
font-family: “Independent Serif”, Georgia, serif;
font-weight: 500;
font-size: 28px;
line-height: 32px;
letter-spacing: -0.5px;
color: #ffffff;
margin: 0 0 16px;
}

.bookmark-experience .body-text {
font-family: “Independent Serif”, Georgia, serif;
font-weight: 400;
font-size: 16px;
line-height: 22px;
letter-spacing: -0.3px;
color: #ffffff;
margin: 0 0 24px;
}

.bookmark-experience .subscribe-link {
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
width: 100%;
height: 42px;
padding: 12px 16px;
background: #ffffff;
color: #76071f;
border-radius: 4px;
font-family: “Independent Sans”, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, “Segoe UI”, Roboto, sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 500;
line-height: 16px;
letter-spacing: -0.5px;
text-transform: uppercase;
text-decoration: none;
}

.bookmark-experience .subscribe-link:hover,
.bookmark-experience .subscribe-link:focus {
background: #f0e6e8;
color: #76071f;
}

.bookmark-experience .login-copy {
margin: 12px 0 0;
font-family: “Independent Sans”, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, “Segoe UI”, Roboto, sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
line-height: 18px;
letter-spacing: -0.5px;
color: #ffffff;
}

.bookmark-experience .login-link {
color: #ffffff;
text-decoration: underline;
cursor: pointer;
}

@media screen and (min-width: 600px) {
.bookmark-experience {
padding: 16px;
}

.bookmark-experience .modal {
max-width: 520px;
padding: 40px 48px 32px;
}

.bookmark-experience .close-btn,
.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon,
.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon::before,
.bookmark-experience .close-btn__icon::after {
width: 16px;
}

.bookmark-experience .close-btn {
top: 16px;
right: 16px;
}

.bookmark-experience .logo-premium-image {
height: 28px;
width: 320px;
}

.bookmark-experience .headline {
font-size: 32px;
line-height: 36px;
letter-spacing: -0.75px;
margin-bottom: 16px;
}

.bookmark-experience .body-text {
font-size: 16px;
line-height: 22px;
margin-bottom: 28px;
}
}
}

html:not(.mos-bookmark-open) .bookmark-experience { display: none !important; }

Never again. That felt the sentiment when Tottenham finished 17th for a second successive season. After a summer of record-breaking, image-shattering, team-reshaping spending, they are not 17th any more. Although, admittedly, they are 20th.

They did start the season there, too, albeit only on alphabetical order after the relegations of Wolves and West Ham. But now, as the last team in the table and the last side in the country to score a league goal, Roberto De Zerbi’s team have contrived to make a spectacularly bad start to the season.

It is all the more notable as, having done much of their recruitment early, Spurs nevertheless felt unprepared for the beginning of the campaign: the abject 3-0 defeat at Brentford came with a front three of Mikey Moore, Richarlison and Mathys Tel, only one of whom is even eligible to play for Spurs in the next three months.

The subsequent four matches could fall into the category of a learning process for recent recruits, a new-look team and a manager only in situ since the last day of March who is waiting for the moment they all click. Or they could flash warning lights about the biggest spending spree in Tottenham’s history.

Take Jan Paul van Hecke, for example, as De Zerbi did when buying his former Brighton centre-back. And yet, as Luka Vuskovic went in the opposite direction in separate deals, there was always the concern Albion were getting the long-term choice. They appear to have got the short-term option, too: the Croatian teenager has made much the more auspicious start, too, with Van Hecke’s awful afternoon against Aston Villa’s speedster Nicolas Jackson on Saturday feeling worrying.

The sense was that Spurs’ unusually big budget gave a club with a record of missing out on their major targets the chance to land them, aiding by a policy of paying over the odds: perhaps £20m each over the odds for their four biggest buys.

Which will have some justification if they succeed, and has none if they fail. But if Spurs are pursuing a plan in midfield, it is hard to detect in midfield. When they paid £85m for Mateus Fernandes and £100m for Sandro Tonali, the assumption was that they had an idea of how to pair a duo who can both operate as No 8. But in five league games so far, the Portuguese has begun two on the bench and been taken off at half-time in a third. So how do they combine?

Then there is the question of the structure around them. Thus far, they have often been accompanied by the more defensive Rodrigo Bentancur. Yet as Spurs have a host of No 10s – even if many of them are either injured or not fully fit – the profile of the squad suggests they will play 4-2-3-1. Oddly, two of their three goals against top-flight opponents have come from Conor Gallagher, an uncreative player used as a No 10 by De Zerbi at the end of last season. Maybe De Zerbi’s midfield blueprint will look different when Dejan Kulusevski and Xavi Simons are available again. For now, it looks a mystery, including his volte face from wanting to sell Lukas Bergvall to keeping him.

But the greatest issue has lain in attack and not merely in the 445-minute drought before Gallagher and Van Hecke’s ultimately irrelevant late goals against Villa. Inasmuch as a tactic is evident it is for Tottenham to start quickly and hope that, somehow, that leads to a goal. It hasn’t.

The personnel feel a reason, which in turn reflects on the transfer-market choices. Omar Marmoush has started two league games as a striker and two off the left, seemingly indicating a confusion as to where De Zerbi sees a versatile player operating. With Richarlison exiled, alienated but not sold, the only specialist centre-forward is the injury-prone Dominic Solanke. Tottenham’s bluntness was compounded by the decision to sign Savio; known as Savinho at Manchester City, he dropped two letters from his name, one for each league goal he scored in his two-year stay at the Etihad Stadium. The Brazilian has talent but, in a summer of ridiculous prices, Spurs’ decision to pay an initial £75m, with a guarantee of at least £5m more in add-ons, for a winger with such a limited scoring record felt the craziest.

There was intrigue as to what a tactician as imaginative as De Zerbi, with the remit to improve an underachieving team and the finances to transform their squad, would do. Five games does not automatically mean the answer is to create a mess.

Yet the decision-making looks dubious, at best, and not merely in buying and team selection. De Zerbi has bemoaned a lack of leadership and yet left Andy Robertson, the most obvious leader at the club, off his new leadership group. The Italian has said that “you can’t buy mentality”, but that invites the question of what his purchases were intended to bring.

De Zerbi may see his rhetoric as honesty. Others interpret it as dodging responsibility himself and blaming his players. That he has never stayed at a club for longer than three years, and only once reached his two-year anniversary, made it more remarkable that he was given such huge power to overhaul a club. As it is, and despite their twin 17th places, Tottenham’s level of expenditure means anything short of European qualification is failure. And while they have only played five games, they have begun as if likelier to be embroiled in another relegation struggle.