Tottenham head coach Roberto De Zerbi once again found himself having to explain his team’s performance. Although his side scored their first goals of the season, they still suffered a 2-3 home defeat to Aston Villa.
“I don’t want to focus on the first half right now, when we completely dominated, created chances, and played excellent football. What I want to understand—and this is where all my attention is now—is why we conceded while down to ten men for literally just one minute. In such situations, we must be more reliable, constantly communicate, maintain absolute concentration, and defend as compactly as possible,” De Zerbi said.
He continued, “Then in the second half, we scored through Kudus, but the goal was disallowed for offside. I don’t know, maybe some players were physically drained, but we conceded an utterly unacceptable goal following a simple long clearance from their goalkeeper. We were well aware of this before the match: this season, Aston Villa uses 86% more long passes than last year. We reviewed this in detail during team meetings yesterday and two days ago.”
“Now we have to justify ourselves again for a match that unfolded similarly to the one against Newcastle. We played excellently in the first half, controlled the game for about 60 minutes, but then ended up losing. Of course, this is entirely my responsibility as the coach. I do not shy away from it and take the blame on myself. However, during the periods when the game stops being solely about ball control and positional play in the opponent’s third—and realistically, we cannot dominate in the opposition’s penalty area for the full 90 minutes—when we have to endure and defend, we must defend compactly. Our leaders need to show their qualities and lead the team,” concluded Roberto De Zerbi.
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