Roberto De Zerbi has launched a passionate rallying call to his Tottenham players, staff and supporters ahead of Sunday’s trip to Aston Villa, insisting negativity is the biggest threat to his side’s survival bid and refusing to accept that relegation is inevitable.
Spurs sit 18th in the Premier League with four games remaining, two points adrift of safety following their first league win of 2026 against already-relegated Wolves last weekend – a result that came at a devastating cost, with Xavi Simons suffering a cruciate ligament rupture and Dominic Solanke picking up a hamstring injury that rules both out for the foreseeable future.
De Zerbi was in no mood to dwell on the misfortune.
“Listen, I want to be clear one time. The most important challenge now is to silence the voice inside of us, inside of the players, inside the staff, the fans. This voice produces negative thoughts and the voice says we are unlucky, we have too many injuries.
“We lost Xavi Simons and he was in the last two games one of the most important players for us. Our medical staff is not good enough, the pitch of the stadium is not good, our training pitch is not good. Winning two or three games in a row is impossible because we hadn’t won a game in 2026. I think it’s all negative things and it’s rubbish.
“I want to keep the focus on ourselves and the quality of my players. We go to play against one of the best teams in this moment in the Premier League but if Tottenham win at Villa Park it’s not a miracle. Maybe we lose but we have the quality to win this game. It’s not a miracle. We have to be positive.
“If Xavi and Solanke are injured we can play with Kolo Muani, Tel, Richarlison etc. They are different but very good players. All these things — I don’t have too much time to hear these things.”
‘We have to die on the pitch’
De Zerbi was equally defiant when addressing the growing chorus of voices writing Spurs off, with two points and two places separating his side from West Ham in the table.
“I heard no, it’s impossible, we are crying, everyone, we are relegated, no? Not yet and we have to die on the pitch. We have to play, we have to fight, we have two points less than West Ham. They have to play a difficult game like us. It’s not the best moment for us, a tough moment, but the losers cry, they think negative and I don’t want people close to me crying or to think a different way than me.
“We are good enough to win the games and to stay up and then we will see because it’s the unique way. The way I know is to work hard, give my best, to trust in my idea of the players, their confidence and to be realistic. I think there are not a lot of people realistic now.”
‘Take one game per game’
The Italian acknowledged the damage done by a run of cruel results, citing the draw against Brighton and the loss at Sunderland as moments where his side deserved more. But he said the only path forward was to wipe the slate entirely clean.
“We lost a lot of injuries, players, we lost two points with Brighton and in Sunderland we conceded one stupid goal and didn’t deserve to lose the game, just in my time. There is just one way if you want to have no regrets in the future, you have to remove everything from our heads, from our memories and to take one game per game, one training per training and to find the right organisation, confidence and to play showing our qualities.
“I want to be realistic – it’s different from positive. Not positive because there is the sun, Italian weather, no no, I want to be realistic for that. I feel this pressure to change the perspective – the same perspective you can see in a different way. One way is we are unlucky, we are at the bottom of the table and the other perspective is we play with these players. We have quality. We can do this.”
