De Zerbi Defends Tonali Amid Spurs' Struggles
Roberto De Zerbi refused to offer up Sandro Tonali as a scapegoat on a bruising afternoon for Tottenham, even as the club’s record signing found himself at the eye of the storm in a 2-0 defeat to Newcastle.
Tonali, the first nine-figure signing in Spurs’ history, endured a grim first league outing at home. Rested in midweek against Charlton to sharpen his fitness, he returned to the XI but never found the rhythm De Zerbi demands. He was partly at fault for Anthony Elanga’s opener, looked off the pace throughout, and was hauled off on 75 minutes to jeers and cheers from the away end.
The noise around him grew. De Zerbi’s stance did not.
“No, I love Sandro Tonali,” the Italian insisted afterwards. His tone was defiant, not defensive. “Today is the day where my emotion for my players is bigger than the other days because we are building together the club, Vinai (Venkatesham), Johan Lange, the owners, me and they (the players) are like our children. So, this day is so sad. We are all of us very disappointed for the result, but I love my players more today than the next win we will make. I believe more than the Brentford game of our project, I believe in our players.”
The message was clear: the project comes before the panic.
Fitness questions and a £100m focal point
Tonali’s condition remains a puzzle. He featured heavily in pre-season, facing Chelsea, Getafe and Hoffenheim, yet still looks short of his true level. De Zerbi did not hide from that reality. He admitted the former AC Milan and Newcastle midfielder is nowhere near his best, but stressed he is central to what Tottenham are trying to become.
The Italian is trying to knit together a side that is still arriving in pieces. Several key players only recently rejoined the group after international duty and injury layoffs, and that delay is written all over his early line-ups and patterns of play.
“I think (Omar) Marmoush for the first game played very well,” De Zerbi said. “It was the first game for Micky van de Ven and Pedro Porro, they came late and they are crucial for this team, after the World Cup, after two injuries. Sandro Tonali is another crucial player. He is not in the right condition, in the best condition yet, maybe physically.”
So the spine De Zerbi wants is there in theory. On the pitch, it is still a sketch.
A fragile habit Spurs cannot shake
The deeper problem is not Tonali’s touch or his running power. It is Tottenham’s reaction when the first punch lands.
Once Elanga struck, the pattern felt grimly familiar. Under De Zerbi, Spurs have lost every match in which they have conceded first. That weakness stretches back beyond him. To find the last time Tottenham went behind in a Premier League game and still won, you have to rewind almost two years to November 2024.
For a club that talks about changing its mentality, that number stings.
De Zerbi did not sugar-coat it. “After the goal we conceded, I think we lost the confidence. The reaction was not good enough,” he said. “Not the reaction I want to see on the pitch and I said immediately after the end of the game, to the players, because when you are building something new, it’s tough, there are problems.”
The honesty cut through the usual early-season platitudes. His team shrank when they needed to swell.
Culture cannot be bought
Two defeats from two to start the Premier League campaign, a summer of heavy spending, a £100m midfielder struggling to breathe in the glare. The pressure is already circling De Zerbi, even if the club hierarchy keeps preaching patience.
He pushed back against the idea that the transfer window should have solved everything. Money can buy talent; it cannot buy nerve.
“You can’t buy winning mentality in the transfer market,” he said, underlining the intangible edge he believes is still missing in the dressing room.
For now, De Zerbi is doubling down on the family metaphor. He talks about players as children, about protection, about shared responsibility between himself, Vinai Venkatesham, Johan Lange and the owners. Tonali, for all the scrutiny, sits at the centre of that circle.
The question is whether that loyalty, and this painful start, hardens Spurs into something new or drags them back into the same old story.
