De Zerbi Defends Tonali Amid Spurs' Struggles
Sandro Tonali’s new life in North London was never going to be quiet. A £100m price tag guarantees that. But the noise around him is already deafening.
In Tottenham’s 2-0 defeat to Newcastle, the Italian midfielder found himself at the heart of the storm. Rested in midweek against Charlton to sharpen his fitness, he returned to the Premier League stage looking a step behind the tempo. He was partly at fault for Anthony Elanga’s opener and lasted only until the 75th minute, when his number went up and the away end roared its approval.
The boos weren’t for their own man. They were for the symbol: the expensive, high-profile signing struggling to catch fire.
De Zerbi, though, refused to offer him up as a scapegoat.
“I love Sandro Tonali,” the Spurs head coach said, emotion cutting through the disappointment. “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.”
That is the line De Zerbi is walking: anger at the result, protection for the dressing room.
Fitness questions and a new core
The mystery persists around Tonali’s physical condition. He featured in pre-season against Chelsea, Getafe and Hoffenheim, yet still looks short of his best stride. De Zerbi didn’t hide from that reality. He accepted that the former AC Milan and Newcastle midfielder is not yet at full tilt, but he underlined that Tonali remains central to what he is trying to build.
This isn’t just about one player. It’s about a spine still under construction.
“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.”
Key players arriving late after international duty, others returning from injuries, and a manager trying to knit them into a coherent structure on the fly. It shows. Spurs look like a side still learning each other’s movements while the league punishes every hesitation.
A fragile pattern Spurs can’t shake
Tonali’s struggles are the headline, but the deeper problem is uglier: Tottenham crumble when they fall behind.
Under De Zerbi, they have lost every game in which they have conceded first. That weakness is not entirely his creation; it reaches back nearly two years. You have to rewind to November 2024 to find the last time Spurs went behind in a Premier League match and still found a way to win.
That is not a blip. It is a habit.
The same pattern returned against Newcastle. As soon as Elanga struck, the belief drained from Spurs. The home crowd felt it. So did the visitors. Newcastle tightened their grip; Tottenham shrank.
“After the goal we conceded, I think we lost the confidence. The reaction was not good enough,” De Zerbi admitted. “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.”
He is blunt about it: this team does not yet know how to suffer, reset and fight back when the script turns against them.
Money spent, mentality missing
Two defeats to open the Premier League campaign, heavy investment in the squad, and a fanbase that has heard the word “project” more times than it cares to count. The pressure is already circling.
The club has spent big to give De Zerbi tools. Tonali, the first nine-figure signing in Spurs’ history, embodies that ambition. His every touch now carries the weight of the fee, every misplaced pass an invitation for judgment.
De Zerbi, though, is adamant that some things cannot be fast-tracked with cash.
“You can’t buy winning mentality in the transfer market,” he said, spelling out the gap between expenditure and identity. Culture, resilience, the ability to respond when the first punch lands – those are grown, not signed.
So Spurs find themselves here: a new manager, a reshaped squad, a marquee midfielder searching for rhythm, and a club still flinching when it falls behind. De Zerbi has chosen his stance. He will shield Tonali, double down on the long-term vision, and demand that this group learns to fight through days like this.
The question now is simple: how long will a restless club wait for that mentality to finally arrive?
