De Zerbi is a very passionate, straight-talking and ambitious manager who demands total commitment and backing from his board.
He has definitely had that at Spurs, which has left people wondering why he has made such a slow start.
But, before the season started, I thought his biggest challenge with so many different types of players arriving would be to put players together that fit as a team, not as a group of individuals.
I’ve been in that situation myself, for example in my early days at Stoke, when I signed Gerry Taggart and Michael Duberry to play together, two centre-halves who were complete opposites in relation to how they dealt with space on the pitch.
Gerry always wanted to drop off deeper because he wasn’t overly quick, whereas Michael was fast and didn’t ever worry about leaving space behind him.
I couldn’t make Gerry any quicker, so common sense locked in and I had to convince Michael that he would have to take a step away from his main strengths of pace and power and work along Gerry’s lines instead.
We spent a great deal of time on the grass in training until we finally got both working in unison. Both were different, but they understood the importance of working together as a pair for the benefit of the team. Even so, it still took time for it to click.
For any manager trying to build a successful team by developing combinations like that, the main thing you need is time with your players.
It can happen where a lot of new players settle in quickly at the same time and the team starts well – like Sunderland last season, or Brighton pretty much every year when they have lost several key players – but the difference is that while those clubs might also have changed their manager, they have not changed their identity.
Whether it is Sunderland and Brighton, or Brentford and Bournemouth, they all have a set identity so that when they look for a player to fit in a certain position, he has to have certain strengths.
When you don’t have that solid base behind you, knowing exactly what is needed for certain positions, then bringing 10 new signings and all in one window like Spurs have just done, is going to create many issues for the coach.
Each player has a different personality and needs different amount of time to settle in, not only to a new environment but also to adjust to the demands of a very single-minded and demanding coach like De Zerbi is.
This settling-in period would have been covered if all the players had had a pre-season together, to get up to speed with their team-mates and what De Zerbi is asking of them, with his front-foot style of play.
That did not happen, and then even after the season started, Spurs were still adding to their squad.
