Spending more than £300m on a squad only to end up 18th in October usually ends with a manager boxing up his office. At Tottenham, the opposite has happened: the ownership has decided this is exactly why De Zerbi has to stay.
The club has reached a settled position that the Italian will not be dismissed during the current international break, according to TEAMtalk, with sources describing the hierarchy as “firmly behind” the manager and determined to give him the time required to make the rebuild work.
A club source who spoke to TEAMtalk earlier in the sack cycle put the mood more bluntly.
“There is nobody better than Roberto to turn this around; this was never an easy fix, despite the summer outlay. He is very much still the man for Tottenham.”
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Roberto De Zerbi arrived at Spurs on 31 March 2026, replacing interim coach Igor Tudor with the club in a relegation fight. He kept them up on the final day of 2025-26, finishing 17th, and was then handed the kind of transfer budget usually reserved for a top-four push.
A £300m rebuild that hasn’t fired
Sporting director Johan Lange delivered the headline buys. Spurs broke their transfer record twice in 24 hours in July, agreeing a £100m deal for Newcastle’s Sandro Tonali and an £85m move for West Ham’s Mateus Fernandes. Brighton defender Jan Paul van Hecke followed, and ten new faces in all pushed the window spend past £300m.
The results have not followed. Three points from six matches have Spurs 18th, and it is the first time in 18 years that the club has been in the Premier League’s bottom three this far into a season.
Something to build on at Old Trafford
Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Manchester United was the first sign the rebuild might cohere. Dominic Solanke equalized in the 92nd minute after Rodrigo Bentancur was sent off in the 78th for a headbutt on Luke Shaw, and De Zerbi left the ground oddly cheerful.
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“I like the red card,” De Zerbi said, framing the dismissal as the moment his team finally played as one.
A boardroom that is not Levy’s
The hierarchy weighing this call is not the one De Zerbi joined. Daniel Levy stepped down as executive chairman on 4 September 2025 after nearly 25 years, with Peter Charrington installed as non-executive chairman the same day. The Lewis family’s ENIC remains the majority owner.
The Premier League resumes on 18 October, when Spurs host Aston Villa and De Zerbi gets his first chance to translate the boardroom’s patience into points.
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