It was quite the admission from Roberto De Zerbi as he prepared for Saturday’s game at Wolves, which has the feel of a must-win for Tottenham in their increasingly traumatic battle against relegation. The manager reported that James Maddison was “not available yet” as he goes through the final stages of his rehabilitation from the anterior cruciate ligament rupture that has wrecked his season. The midfielder “felt pain” during the week, De Zerbi added, albeit it was not a major problem. So, there has to be no room for him in the matchday squad, then? Well, actually …
“He will come with us on the bench because he is important,” De Zerbi said. “If he plays or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s better if he plays, for sure, but, as a guy, as a leader, he is positive. Inside of my dressing room I want to see nice people, positive people, and this is important also for his teammates.”
De Zerbi pulled the same move last Saturday when he named Maddison among the substitutes for the 2-2 home draw against Brighton, even though he knew the player had no chance of getting on. Maddison did not even come out to warm up. But here was De Zerbi publicly confirming Maddison as a vibes man for the challenge that lay immediately ahead; a kind of spirit animal.
De Zerbi will be without eight other players because of injuries, Destiny Udogie the latest casualty with a short-term muscle problem. The manager said Guglielmo Vicario (hernia) and Pape Matar Sarr (shoulder) would not return against Wolves. That has squeezed his options and, faced with a choice between an academy youngster who probably would not get on and Maddison, he has gone for his most charismatic player. It makes sense when you consider De Zerbi’s determination to try anything to boost the confidence of a team who have not won in 15 league matches; fail to do so at Wolves and they would equal the club’s all-time record of 16 games set between 1934 and 1935.
There was a moment during De Zerbi’s press conference on Friday when he mentioned his respect for the Wolves manager, Rob Edwards. De Zerbi remembered how Edwards’ Luton had beaten his Brighton team 4-0 in January 2024. “A very bad game,” he said. But it stood in glorious isolation because for De Zerbi, it has to be positivity only in a do-or-die situation. Before his third match in charge, the Italian was interested purely in talking up his players, reminding them of their qualities. In his opinion, they have the talent to clamber up and out of the relegation zone. It simply needs to be unlocked, the psychological obstacles removed so they can play “without too many problems in their head”.
“If you speak every day about the faults, the head of the players stay on the faults and it’s not good,” De Zerbi added. “We have to be positive and to be positive we have to remember what we are good at.
“For sure my words [alone] are not enough and I try to find the best solution to reach every player. Sometimes you arrive with a video. Sometimes with words. Sometimes with red wine. Or a beer. You have to find the balance. The most important part for a player is like this [points to his head]. And the heart.”
De Zerbi’s motivational videos and clips have not come solely from Spurs matches this season. They can be from a player’s previous club. “For example, if I play with Randal Kolo Muani as a right-winger, it’s because he has played in that position,” De Zerbi said. “If you go to YouTube and you go to ‘Kolo Muani, Eintracht Frankfurt’, you can see he played very well in that position. When I don’t work in my office, I go to find something to be important for me to give more information about the players because we have no time and we have to consider everything to stay up.”
De Zerbi continues to believe that one win will be the catalyst for survival and he went back to a pivotal game from his Brighton days to illustrate the point. He started badly after succeeding Graham Potter in September 2022, taking two points from his first five matches. Then his team beat Chelsea 4-1 and it was onwards and upwards. “We changed everything,” De Zerbi said. He needs to do so again. Quickly.