Is De Zerbi getting ready to quit Spurs after £300m summer spend?

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Robin Bairner | Chief Editor

Roberto De Zerbi has already made a threat to quit Tottenham just three weeks into the Premier League season after a summer in which his club spent £315 million (€365m) in the transfer market.

Spurs are not just waiting on their first win of the campaign; they are waiting on their first league goal. Brentford, Newcastle and now Nottingham Forest have all shut out the big-spending Londoners.

After flirting dangerously with relegation last season, Tottenham are tied 17th in the early stages of this campaign and face a big week in which they will face Everton and Aston Villa in the Premier League, as well as Liverpool in the EFL Cup.

Those league fixtures against historic giants who have also made a sluggish start promise to be decisive in the future of De Zerbi, who spectacularly quit Marseille in early 2026, leaving the Ligue 1 giants in a state of meltdown.

He has already hinted that his future may lie away from the club.

Speaking after the loss at Newcastle, he said: “I'm disappointed for the result and I'm sorry for the fans, for the environment now because after two defeats maybe Somebody can think it's the same history, the same of the last two seasons. I have no doubt it's not like this. I have a big, big confidence in the qualities of my players.

“This group with me or with another coach, nothing changed because these players are too good.”

The first warning shot has been sent

Marseille learned to their cost that when De Zerbi starts musing over his future in public, it’s not a positive sign.

“If I'm the problem, I'm ready to leave. I'll leave the money and hand back my contract,” he said following a 3-1 home loss to Auxerre a couple of months before his eventual departure.

In many ways, though, his departure from the south of France was predictable. There were repeated threats in the build-up to the announcement of his departure at 2:30am following a 5-0 loss against PSG.

De Zerbi had repeatedly expressed his frustration, like a volcano giving tremors before it blows its top.

“When he’s angry, he sulks,” a source close to Marseille told L’Equipe at the time.

Spurs can’t afford to let De Zerbi walk

The message De Zerbi has sent out at Spurs, then, is simply the first warning shot that if things don’t improve in the next two or three months, he could walk away.

Tottenham can ill-afford to lose their manager now. Those players signed at such cost in the transfer market have been attracted to the London side by the Italian, and they need him as their centrepiece for this latest part of their project to be a success.

Spurs’ confidence in De Zerbi, meanwhile, appears absolute. Even if they had gone down last season, they were willing to stick with him even in the Championship, though whether they would feel the same way after a whole campaign of Premier League football and a record transfer outlay remains to be seen.