Tony Pulis Backs Roberto De Zerbi And Stresses Patience At Tottenham
BBC Sport columnist Tony Pulis argues Tottenham's summer spending has raised expectations unrealistically and says Roberto De Zerbi needs time with his players to build a coherent team.
Tony Pulis has defended Tottenham head coach Roberto De Zerbi against early criticism, arguing that the club's roughly £400m summer outlay on new players has created expectations that no manager could meet quickly. Speaking as a BBC Sport columnist, Pulis said the scale of spending was almost unprecedented for a club traditionally cautious in the transfer market, and that some supporters began dreaming of trophy challenges and a top-four finish after back-to-back 17th-place finishes.
Pulis said the early results and performances have been disappointing but insisted it is wrong to suggest De Zerbi is under pressure only five games into the season. He pointed out that the manager kept Tottenham up last season and has previously shown his quality elsewhere, and that the international break has taken most of his squad away for another three weeks, denying him time on the training pitch.
The former Stoke and West Brom manager said De Zerbi's main challenge is to knit a large group of new arrivals into a unit rather than a collection of individuals, and noted the club also faces poor home form and an inability to recover after conceding first. Drawing on his own experience of pairing centre-halves Gerry Taggart and Michael Duberry at Stoke, Pulis said making contrasting players work together takes repeated work on the grass and time before it clicks.
Pulis contrasted Tottenham's situation with clubs such as Sunderland, Brighton, Brentford and Bournemouth, which he said retain a clear identity that guides recruitment even when managers change. Without that base, signing about ten players in one window creates multiple problems for a coach, especially when there was no pre-season together and additions continued after the season began.
He added that a manager must understand players' personalities and lifestyles off the pitch, recalling how taking three South American players and their families to dinner at West Brom helped build trust, and how one Premier League player with an unusual routine still performed well once integrated. Pulis said he admires De Zerbi's passion and approach but acknowledged that will count for nothing if Tottenham do not eventually produce results, concluding that the coach deserves a proper chance.
