Brentford Dominates Spurs in De Zerbi's Tough Start
Brentford did not ease themselves into the new season. They tore into it.
From the first whistle of a 3-0 win over Tottenham, Keith Andrews’ side played like a team still stung by last season’s near miss and determined to make their home a hostile place again. Intensive. Relentless. Exactly how their manager wanted it.
Tottenham, under Roberto de Zerbi for the first time in the league, were nowhere near that level. Second best in duels, second best in fitness, and second best in spirit. On this evidence, his “new project” has a long way to go.
Brentford set the tone – and never let up
Keane Lewis-Potter called it “everything we dreamt of”. His performance backed that up.
Brentford’s energy cracked through the game early, the forward helping to set a tempo Spurs never matched. Once the hosts sensed weakness, they refused to sit back.
“If we get one, we want to get two, three, four and keep on going,” Lewis-Potter said. “We don't want to sit back, that's not in our DNA.”
That intent ran through the team. Brentford hunted in packs, snapped into challenges and turned every 50-50 into a home advantage. The crowd fed off it, and the players fed off the crowd. Andrews called it “intensive, relentless and filled with a way of playing that is difficult to play against.” He was right.
The manager had seen this coming.
“Felt like there was a performance coming,” he said. “You never really know after pre-season… but I felt good for a number of weeks about how we were coming together.”
He got his answer. In style.
Sangare arrives and lifts the level
If Brentford wanted a statement from Mamadou Sangare on his Premier League debut, they got it.
“He is a top player, no doubt about it. He is the one we were after in the window,” Andrews said. “When you bring in a really good player, it brings the level of the team up.”
Sangare’s decision to choose Brentford over more lucrative offers has already earned him credit in the dressing room. On the pitch, his cohesion with an already talented midfield gave Brentford control and bite.
“He’s settled in really well,” Andrews added. “The cohesion he brings to an already-talented midfield, we're really happy with him.”
Team-mate Nathan Collins went for the lighter touch.
“He's alright, he started okay… we want more from him though! More goals, more tackles.”
Sangare himself kept it simple: “It's good to start with a win, I hope we can continue like that.”
The message from Brentford is clear: last season’s near miss is fuel, not baggage. Collins put it bluntly: “We know last season we were one point off, this year, we've added quality people to the squad.”
De Zerbi’s Spurs out-fought and out-run
On the away bench, there was no attempt to sugar-coat it.
“Bad game,” Roberto de Zerbi said. “We lost and suffered the difference in the duels. It was the key of this game. We didn't fight in the right way.”
He knew fitness was an issue. He said it before and after the match. Players arriving late after the summer, new signings still short of their peak. Marcos Senesi, Jan Paul van Hecke and Sandro Tonali were all flagged as not in the best physical condition.
But he refused to hide behind that.
“I am surprised by the result and performance. I knew we were not in the right condition. We can't find an excuse,” he said. “We have to analyse this game better because we can't play this way in this type of game.”
On Sky Sports, his assessment was even starker.
“We suffered physically but we knew that before the game. We were not ready to fight the duels. We arrived too many times late and we lost too many duels to compete with Brentford.”
He pointed to poor pressing, with Mikey Moore singled out as a reference point for timing issues, and a first half in which Tottenham were repeatedly beaten in individual battles.
“We didn't play well. We didn't fight in the right way,” he said. “We lost too many duels.”
No hiding place for Spurs players
Inside the Spurs camp, there was no attempt to dress it up either.
Midfielder Archie Gray, captain on the day and now the club’s youngest-ever Premier League starting skipper, carried the weight of the armband with honesty.
“For some reason on days in football, a team can outfight another team, it's on us,” he said. “I don't think there's any excuses to be honest.”
He insisted the display was “definitely an improvement from last season” but admitted bluntly: “Today we got out-fought… today wasn't good enough.”
De Zerbi, for his part, tried to protect the bigger picture.
“With a lot of new players, we knew we needed soul and style of play to become a team. Today I think there was the soul but we didn't fight in the right way,” he said.
He stressed that the first XI “should be able to compete” and refused to lean on the transfer market as a shield.
“I don't want the excuse that the first XI was not enough to compete and get a result,” he said, pointing instead to Brentford’s on-pitch spirit as “the right example for us.”
The Italian’s demand is simple: more organisation, better pressing, sharper fitness, and a different edge in duels. Quickly.
“We can improve quickly but first, we have to understand this game better,” he said. “We need to find the right spirit to fight but today, it wasn't there. I expected better for sure.”
Brentford’s belief grows, Spurs’ questions pile up
Andrews knows what this result will spark: talk of Europe, of last season’s “one point off”, of whether Brentford can finally turn promise into a full campaign of consistency.
He is not shying away from the ambition, just refusing to be consumed by it.
“Football is a soap opera and we just need to deal with it week to week,” he said. “The plan is to get better. We need to keep pushing and keep striving.”
The players echo that. Collins called this “just the start for us, it's something to grow from.” Lewis-Potter spoke of making the stadium “so hard to play for away teams.” The connection with the fans, Andrews insisted, is real and powerful.
Tottenham leave with none of that warmth. Only work to do and a midweek game looming.
De Zerbi says he has “a lot of confidence” in his players. He insists they are “good people” with “value and memory.” But this was a brutal reminder that reputation and ideas mean nothing if you lose every duel.
Brentford have laid down their marker. Now the question hangs over Spurs: how quickly can this new project find its fight?
