Tottenham Defeated by Brentford: De Zerbi's Struggles with Team Cohesion

Tottenham’s season started with a thud, not a spark. A 3-0 defeat at Brentford, the kind that doesn’t just bruise the scoreboard, but exposes the foundations.

Roberto De Zerbi walked into the press room at the Gtech Community Stadium with no illusions. He had seen this coming.

“I think we are not a team yet,” he said. “For a lot of reasons.”

Brentford ruthless, Spurs ragged

The game unravelled early.

On 12 minutes, new Brentford signing Mamadou Sangare drifted into the Spurs box with alarming ease. No pressure, no bite, no contact. He simply slid the ball across to Keane Lewis-Potter, in even more space, who side-footed in. It looked simple. It was.

Tottenham never recovered any sense of control. When they tried to play out, they were punished.

Richarlison’s hold-up play broke down, Lucas Bergvall was too weak in the challenge, and Brentford swarmed. Mathias Jensen pounced, fired at goal, and Antonin Kinsky could only parry into the path of Vitaly Janelt, who tapped in. Spurs had gifted a second.

After the break, things got worse. Within four minutes of the restart, it was 3-0. Sangare’s shot came through a crowd, Kinsky saved again, but the loose ball dropped to Michael Kayode, who smashed high into the roof of the net. Tottenham’s opening day had turned into a full-blown stinker.

It could have been even uglier. Rodrigo Bentancur brought down Kevin Schade in the area and Brentford had a penalty. Igor Thiago stepped up, sent Kinsky the wrong way – but clipped the outside of the left post. The rebound spun away and, for once, Spurs escaped.

That was one of the few let-offs they had all afternoon.

“We are late for the start of the Premier League”

De Zerbi didn’t hide behind excuses, but he did outline the context.

“For many reasons. I think we are not a team yet,” he repeated. “We are not in the right point in physical condition for a lot of reasons.”

He pointed to players arriving late after the World Cup and a disrupted pre-season trip to Australia where, he said, they “couldn’t work in the right way” because of travel and the need not to take risks. But he stopped short of using that as a shield.

“They are the normal situation when you are building a new project, a new process. I don’t want time, but we have to pass through these problems.”

He’d already seen warning signs.

“After the Hoffenheim game, I said we are not in the right point, we are late for the start of the Premier League. But it’s a step, we have to improve quickly.”

The frustration came from how Spurs lost their battles.

“We lost too many duels, we made too many mistakes in the timing when we wanted to push the pressure higher. We arrived second for the second ball, we didn’t win one second ball, one duel, one tackle, and it’s tough.”

Kids, mistakes and the cost of a new project

De Zerbi kept coming back to one theme: this is a new group, still learning each other.

“If you analyse everything, you can find that we played with one [born in] 2007, one 2006,” he said, referring to the age profile of his squad. Lucas Bergvall was central to that discussion.

The young midfielder’s error contributed to Brentford’s second goal, but De Zerbi refused to hang him out to dry.

“I think he didn’t play bad today, even if I substituted him at half-time. But Lucas Bergvall in the next two years, he will not lose that ball in that moment of the game. But there are steps to become better.”

This, in his eyes, is the reality of Spurs’ rebuild.

“Now the focus and the target is to become a team. Because a team, you can’t become a team for the transfer market window, for the players, the new players, the paper, the player of the paper, no.

You become teams with the players, they find the connection between them, they find the spirit, they find the soul, like I said yesterday, and it’s a process.”

He name-checked Archie Gray, Sandro Tonali, Senesi, JP Van Hecke. Many new faces, all still trying to connect.

“I don’t change idea,” he insisted. “I think we are working well as a club, as a project. We need the time, like the big teams have done in the last 10 years.”

Shock, but no retreat

Fans will have felt stunned by the manner of the defeat, especially after the way Tottenham finished last season. De Zerbi admitted he was too.

“Yeah, I was surprised, I was suffering for this defeat,” he said.

But he drew a clear line between last year’s side and this one. The defensive unit that ended last season – Pedro Porro, Kevin Danso, Micky van de Ven and Destiny Udogie – has been ripped up, at least for now.

“Today, Archie Gray, JP Van Hecke, Senesi and Robertson, four new players,” he pointed out.

Midfield has changed as well. Where Rodrigo Bentancur and Palhinha once anchored things, Bergvall started instead of the Uruguayan.

“Why not Bentancur? Because he came late in the pre-season. In the pre-season we worked with Lucas Bergvall.”

De Zerbi accepted he knew the risk.

“At the beginning of the season, at the beginning of the new project, it was good, it was right to play with Lucas Bergvall. But I knew before the game, Lucas Bergvall, in this type of game, maybe he could suffer more than Rodrigo Bentancur, nine years older, and Lucas, 20. I knew before the game, but at the end you have to think.

“We go, and we try to build something good for the club. We need also Archie Gray, we need also Lucas Bergvall, or we work for today. And tomorrow, I don’t know.”

He accepted the shock, but not the temptation to abandon the plan.

“For today, I agree,” he said of the criticism. “For the plan, for the project, what the club wants and what we are, in the direction we are working, I think is the normal process. Even though we are suffering for the defeat, we are shocking for this defeat, especially for the way we lost the game. Because they deserve to win and we played very, very bad.”

“We didn’t show the soul”

If this was a reality check, De Zerbi believes it might prove useful.

Before a ball was kicked, he had already warned that targets and ambitions meant nothing until Spurs became a proper unit.

“To become a team, in my home, there are two big conditions. The soul and the style of play,” he said. “And today, we didn’t show the soul, and we didn’t show the quality of the play.

“With the ball and without the ball. When we find these two conditions, I think we can become dangerous for everyone, every team. Until we don’t arrive, we don’t reach these conditions, we have to suffer.

“And today, I think it’s important for us, this defeat, because maybe we woke up stronger than we thought, maybe.”

Archie Gray, roles and responsibility

Archie Gray’s role will only grow after the departure of Djed Spence, and De Zerbi was clear about his versatility.

“Archie Gray can play as a full-back, as a midfielder,” he said. “But I think he’s much better than his performance today. But not just Archie Gray, also JP Van Hecke, Sandro Tonali, Richarlison, everyone. We didn’t play a good game.

“But we can’t change our idea on Archie Gray for today, or for Richarlison or Mathys Tel.”

This, he stressed, is not the day to tear up judgments on individuals.

How long will it take?

The obvious question followed: how long until Spurs find their rhythm? Before the international break? Before Newcastle next week?

“We need time, but I think we are much better than we showed today,” De Zerbi replied. “So from Wednesday we can show our qualities, and we can show who we are.”

He added a warning, though. One win will not magically fix everything.

“Anyway, even if we win Wednesday or next Saturday, we need time to become a team. Because to become a team we need time. We need time, we have to analyse the situation, we have to understand the situation. The improvement we have to do, every one of us, because we lose and we win together.”

Set-pieces and the fight in the air

Last season, Tottenham were a force from set-pieces. Now, with Cristian Romero and Palhinha gone, two of their biggest aerial weapons have disappeared. De Zerbi was asked how he is trying to reset that strength.

“Listen, Brentford in set-pieces are maybe the best team in the Premier League. So it’s normal to suffer,” he said.

But he felt the real damage came elsewhere.

“I think we suffer more the duels, more the second ball than the set-pieces.”

That, more than any tactical detail, summed up the afternoon. Spurs were second best in the fight, second best in the basics, second best in belief.

De Zerbi insists he believes in his players, his club, himself. The project, he says, is on the right track. The question now is whether Tottenham can find that soul and style quickly enough to stop days like this becoming a theme rather than an ugly one-off.