The New York Times

In his first few months at Rangers, the family home in Kent served as an escape for Mikey Moore. Home comforts, especially his Dobermann, Ty, helped take the 18-year-old’s mind off football.

Moore has long been spoken of as the most exciting prospect to come out of the Tottenham Hotspur academy since Harry Kane but, after joining Rangers on loan in August, he endured a turbulent start to life away from home. At the time, his dad had suggested it might be better to go for a gentler experience than the goldfish bowl of Glasgow — and for a while it looked like his fears were being realised.

Five months on, Moore is back home for a rare few days off, and all he can think about is football, about what he could achieve after he steps back off his return flight back up to Scotland. His dad, Michael, has returned to playing highlights of former Newcastle United, Tottenham, Rangers and England midfielder Paul Gascoigne, which were a big part of Moore’s introduction to football.

“My dad has always told me I remind him of Gazza,” Moore tells The Athletic in his first interview.

“It’s a massive compliment as he’s become one of my idols from my dad showing me his clips growing up. He is something special and done unbelievable things in the game. It’s a big difference to me at the minute but my dad has always said he sees a bit of him in me. He’s shown me his Rangers clips.”

One of them included Gascoigne’s league-winning, final day hat-trick against Aberdeen in 1996 to seal an eighth title in a row. The Ibrox faithful are hoping that Moore’s similar stocky build and dribbling style can inspire a late run to another title this May. “I’ll need to rewatch that one,” smiles Moore.

The idea that he would be part of a title push would have seemed fanciful back in October. Manager Russell Martin had alienated the Rangers support in record time, and the club was in such a dysfunctional state that fans threw tennis balls onto the pitch as a protest. At one stage they had one victory in eight league matches and were 13 points behind leaders Hearts.

Moore was toiling. He was hooked at half-time twice in a fortnight, first against Hearts in a 2-0 defeat and then a 1-0 loss to Genk in the Europa League. Both games were at home and they opened his eyes to just how brutally unforgiving Ibrox can be. In the game against Hearts, there was a moment in the 34th minute in which he lost the ball twice in five seconds near his own box and the crowd went berserk.

“I tried to forget about that!” laughs Moore. “That was a bad day for me. I had a disaster. I could feel the fans getting on my back. Nothing was going right for me. I could have played simpler at times and tried to get myself back in credit. Just keep it and stop doing what I was doing and giving the ball away.

“You can prepare yourself and people can try to prepare you, but once you get hit with it, it’s different. It’s something I’ve never experienced before.

“It was a tough time. I had been dragged off a few times. It was mentally tough to deal with. I could feel it from the gaffer and the fans. I didn’t want to experience too many more days like that. The difference between then and now is madness.”

Moore has become integral to Rangers, playing 40 games in all competitions with six goals and two assists in the league. He could win the club’s player of the year award if he continues his form in these final seven games.

It is testament to Moore’s character that he stuck out the difficult times and eventually flourished, even as some Tottenham fans questioned the choice of loan. Tottenham’s head of pathways and loans, Andy Scoulding, sees it as a validation of the decision to send Moore into an environment with high expectations.

Scoulding spent five years as head of scouting at Rangers and helped construct the side that Steven Gerrard led to the title in 2021 and that Giovanni van Bronckhorst took to the Europa League final the following year. He knows it takes a special character to cope with the pressure at the club.

He called it the ‘Ibrox Factor’: you either grow with it or you shrink. If the goal is to develop Moore into a top Premier League player, there was no point sending him to a ‘normal’ environment. He had to feel pressure.

Scoulding showed him videos of the atmosphere. He now had to prove he could survive it.

“It’s a good way of putting it,” says Moore. “My dad said a similar thing. ‘Are you sure you want to go there, where it’s going to be really tough? You could start off lower and ease your way in’. But I wanted to go somewhere there was a lot riding on it every week.

“I didn’t want to go somewhere we were mid-table and you’re not bothered if you lose. If you lose at Rangers it’s a disaster.”

He knows what he’s talking about. His girlfriend is the daughter of former Northern Ireland striker Warren Feeney and their entire family are fanatical Rangers supporters. “After the Celtic game last month (Rangers lost on penalties in the Scottish Cup) she was fuming when I got back in the car. She was giving me a bit. I was like, ‘Leave me alone and stop acting like a fan!'”

Moore has transformed into the team’s main playmaker since Danny Rohl took over as manager in October. It started with a conversation before the German manager’s first game, against Kilmarnock.

“I got called into his office. He said: ‘You’re not starting but don’t worry you’re going to come on, maybe at half time or after 55 minutes, and you’re going to make an impact today’ — and I did.

“He told me I was going to be a massive player for us and, by the end of the season, be one of our best players. Those were his words. It gave me belief in myself and made me feel wanted by him. I wanted to repay that.”

Moore made changes off the pitch which helped bring out his best level.

“I was in a hotel for over a month while I tried to sort out where to stay, so my nutrition wasn’t right. I have a big focus on that now. That’s been massive and I feel a big physical improvement. I feel a lot better. I work with someone day-to-day outside the club with my movement and my nutrition. I’ve changed my diet a lot which is big for me the way I’m built.”

The turning point came in the first week of November. First, he produced a terrific substitute performance in the League Cup semi-final defeat by Celtic, breathing belief into the team while losing and down a man. Then he performed well against Roma. It gave him confidence and he scored in his next two games. Since late December he has cemented his place in the team and produced a standout moment at Celtic Park in January, scoring the third in a 3-1 win.

“We were under the cosh that first half and it would have been easy to go hiding. I knew I had to do something so I kept wanting the ball. There is no point shying away from it as that makes you look worse. That was my reward for keeping going. Not everything came off but the rest was forgotten as I had that big moment.”

After signing, Moore stated that he aimed to become one of the best players in the world. It was the sort of self-belief not common in British players.

“I believe in my talent and I believe I have the ability to do it. I know I’m going to work my hardest to get there. A lot of it is about the mentality you bring to games. It’s always been my dream to be one of the best players in the world. Why be scared to say it?

“At the start of the season it may have looked absolutely stupid when I was playing awfully. Now I’m doing a bit better, maybe it doesn’t look as stupid. But I’ve got time on my hands to try and make that happen. In the next few years we’ll see where I am.”

For now, he is thriving in a 4-2-2-2 formation under Rohl, playing in the inside left channel with the freedom to roam and carry the ball. It has clarified where he is at his best.

“I’ve enjoyed being inside the pitch and making stuff happen on the half-turn, getting at people from there and having options on both sides. My best position is either in that inside left role or as a No 10.

“I feel a lot more responsibility on the pitch now and have learned the game quickly. Maybe I used to get the ball and think I could do whatever I wanted but I’ve learned when to offload the ball and when to be direct. I’ve got to improve my decision-making in the final third at times but I’ve matured a lot.”

At Spurs he faces tough competition to break into the first-team, even with big names out of the picture. James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski have both missed the majority of the season, while former captain Son Heung-min left in the summer.

“Sonny helped me a lot. He was one of my idols so because we were in similar positions I’d ask him questions in training and I’d work with him on my finishing to be as good off both feet. You see how good he is but how humble he is off the pitch and how he makes time for all the academy boys.

“I used to share the drive to games with Maddison. Well, I couldn’t drive at the time and he didn’t like driving before a game, so we had a player liaison officer take us and we’d have chats in the car. Before I came here he spoke about his time up here (at Aberdeen) and said it would be top for me.”

While he has been developing, Tottenham have been toiling. Roberto De Zerbi has been named their third permanent appointment of the season with the club only a point above the relegation zone. In two months, Moore could well be returning to a Championship side.

“It’s tough to see people you care about and some of your mates going through a tough time. It’s a club I care about so much. For us to be in the position we’re in is not nice.

“Sometimes I wish I could go back and help but there are some top players there who should be able to help get us out of the position we’re in and push on next season. There is enough quality in that team to get out of it.”

Moore has made 21 appearances for Spurs, which he owes to Ange Postecoglou. The Australian manager helped him become the youngest Premier League player in the club’s history and the youngest English scorer in European history when he scored against Elfsborg in January 2025, breaking Jimmy Greaves’ record which had stood for 68 years.

“He showed trust in me by playing me and I could tell he liked me, but I never spoke to him.

“He just said ‘You’re coming on’ against Man City for my debut. For my first start I found out in the meeting two hours before the game when the team was on the screen. He stays quite far away and tries to not have as much of a relationship so that when it comes down to big decisions and he has to leave people out, he doesn’t have feelings.

“Obviously there was a decision made (to sack him after winning the Europa League) by the people at the top of the club but for me it was a bit of a surprise. When we won I thought he would stay and try to build on what he had done.”

Moore wants to build on this season and has his sights set on a first-team spot at Tottenham.

“Whether it’s next year or the year after, I want to break in and make an impact.

“I helped out in some Premier League games and gave a good account of myself and in others I didn’t show enough. But now I’m at a point where I can make an impact. If that opportunity comes I would love to get a hold of it.”

Spurs’ great hope. Rangers’ only hope, some would argue. In second place, three points behind Hearts, can he handle the expectation and be the catalyst for Rangers to claim their second title in 15 years?

“This means everything to me. Last year winning the Europa League was unbelievable but I didn’t have as much of a part to play. I feel a responsibility to try and help the team lift the title. We either end it with nothing or the biggest prize you can win.”

Moore has his own song ringing around Ibrox, a remake of an old classic dedicated to Michael Mols. Last month, 50 members of the Lewis & Harris supporters club made the three-day, 700-mile trip over land and sea from the Outer Hebrides to present him with their player of the year award.

The adoration has them hoping Moore could return for a second spell.

“I’ve thought about this already. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the summer but if it plays out that I’m not going back it’s going to be really tough as I do genuinely love the club and this city. I have made a connection with the fans.

“These last seven games are massive. Every second I’m on the pitch I’m going to make the most of it and leave everything on the pitch.”

New Tottenham Hotspur head coach Roberto De Zerbi has addressed fan criticism over his historic backing of Mason Greenwood.

Before De Zerbi’s appointment, three supporters’ groups — all officially recognised by the club — urged the north London outfit against pursuing the Italian, citing his backing of the former Manchester United forward, with whom he worked at Marseille.

After De Zerbi was confirmed as Igor Tudor’s successor on March 31, the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters’ Trust (THST) condemned the decision.

De Zerbi addressed the backlash in a video released on the club’s social media feeds on Thursday, saying he is “sorry if I offended anyone’s feelings with this subject matter”.

“I have never wanted to downplay the issue of violence against women or violence against anyone more broadly,” he said. “In my life I’ve always stood up for those who are more vulnerable, more fragile. I’ve consistently fought and taken a stand to be on the side of those who are most at risk.

“Those of you who know me well will know that I’m not the kind of person who makes compromises to win more games or to win an extra title.

“I have a daughter and I’m very sensitive to these things, and I always have been. I hope that over time people will get to know me better and will understand that at that moment I didn’t mean to take a stance.”

De Zerbi frequently backed Greenwood publicly as a player and a person after the forward joined Marseille from United in summer 2024, when the 46-year-old was head coach of the Ligue 1 side.

While playing for United, Greenwood, who came through the academy at the Premier League club, was arrested on January 31, 2022 on suspicion of rape and assault, and further arrested on February 1, 2022 on suspicion of sexual assault and making threats to kill.

He was charged in October 2022 with one count of attempted rape, one count of controlling and coercive behaviour and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. All three charges related to the same woman.

He had been due to stand trial in November 2023, but the charges were discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in early February 2023. Upon the discontinuation of the charges, the CPS said “a combination of the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material that came to light meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.” Greenwood denied all allegations against him.

After a loan spell at Spanish side Getafe, Greenwood joined Marseille shortly after De Zerbi’s appointment as head coach in July 2024.

De Zerbi left Marseille on February 11 after less than two years, the same day Spurs sacked Thomas Frank. The former Brighton & Hove Albion coach has taken over at Tottenham with the club 17th in the Premier League, just one point above the relegation zone.

In a statement in response to De Zerbi’s interview, THST said: “We asked for Roberto De Zerbi and the Club to address the comments. He has done so and apologised for any offence. He has reiterated a commitment to challenge violence against women. This is extremely welcome. The fan base can now fully unite behind him and the team and work together to avoid relegation.”

The three fan groups which urged the club against De Zerbi’s appointment — Proud Lilywhites, Women of the Lane and Spurs REACH — have all been contacted by The Athletic for comment.

De Zerbi has agreed a five-year deal with Spurs, and insisted that he will be at the club next season “no matter what.”

Asked about his footballing philosophy, De Zerbi replied: “I think it’s not the right moment to speak about my philosophy of football. I’m here now, at the end of the season, because we have to win games.

“In football, the style of play, the tactical disposition are importnat. But there is a mentality, and I would like to help the players reach the best mentality they can show.

“I signed five years of contract because for me its a big challenge and I will be the coach of Tottenham next season, no matter what.”

You could write a long list of the important things missing at Tottenham Hotspur this season. Wins, goals, fun, entertainment, enjoyment, unity, stability, strategy, optimism, progress, respite, comfort, satisfaction, hope… we could all keep reeling them off all day.

But there is one more ingredient, something that has perhaps been buried underneath everything else in the sorry mess of their 2025-26 campaign.

And that is an idea.

Every good football team needs an idea to unify them, to define them, for the players to rally around. Without an idea that the players all buy into, no team can ever be more than the sum of its parts.

Watching Tottenham this season has been a lesson in many things, but above all it has shown what happens if a team has no shared idea to believe in. When Thomas Frank arrived from Brentford last summer as the new head coach, he came with lorry-loads of best practice, clever methods on set pieces and behavioural standards that had worked well at his previous club.

But it always felt, watching Spurs play, as if there was nothing to bind it all together.

The players never looked as if they were fully bought into what they were being asked to do. That lack of conviction and intensity, more than anything else, explains why Tottenham were so poor under Frank. Every time a game was in the balance, their opponents looked more committed to their own plan.

When Igor Tudor succeeded the Dane in February, nobody expected him to come in and reinvent the wheel. He was at Spurs to make a short-term impact, to get them fit and organised and moving back up the table. This was never about style of play. And of course it did not work, Tottenham took one point from five games and he too was sacked.

Which leads us to the appointment of Roberto De Zerbi.

The one thing that defines the new Spurs head coach more than anything, even more than his passion and his intensity, is his idea. He has his own concept of positional football and his own vision about how to execute it — provoking the opposition press to find the space. The hardest thing to be in football is original, but that is exactly what De Zerbi has succeeded in being.

The last time Tottenham were animated by an original idea was when Ange Postecoglou arrived in the summer of 2023 with his own distinct twist on attacking, possession football. It feels like ancient history now, but that style was a sensation for the start of Postecoglou’s first season. The players were transformed by the power of having an idea they could all commit to. Almost overnight, they went from being a collection of individuals into a unit, trying to make Postecoglou’s dream real.

Now we all know what happened next, and how he ended up winning the Europa League in his second and final season with a very different style of football. But there is still no denying how thrilling that start was. And no denying that at the heart of it was the manager’s idea, and the players’ belief in it. Without that, it was nothing.

An awful lot has happened between now and then, on and off the pitch. Spurs are in a league position nobody would ever have expected.

But if you want to make an optimistic case for De Zerbi and for the difference he can make at the club, then here it is: Tottenham finally have an idea back. For the first time since Postecoglou, there is an original, specific ambitious vision of the game at the heart of what they want to be.

Now, people might say at this point that they have never seen an idea score a goal. Which is true, in a strictly literal sense. But what ideas can do, especially when delivered by the right manager, is motivate the players. Give them something to believe in. Something to work towards. Something that makes sense of what happens on the pitch. And this is exactly what Tottenham have lacked.

Spurs have some very good players who have never looked like themselves this year, senior pros who joined the club to compete for trophies and play in the Champions League, not scrap along with Nottingham Forest and West Ham United at the wrong end of the table. There is a theory that they need to feel like they are playing elite football, dominant football, and that if they can just be inspired, then they will raise their levels again.

The central challenge of the past few months at Tottenham has been to get into the heads of the players and have them recommit to something. This is what Tudor was clearly unable to do. And this plan, as unlikely as it feels, has as realistic a prospect of doing that as anything else.

Of course, in an ideal world, the players might be able to find their own motivation anyway. Or rather, the badge, the pride of the fans, the perilous position of the team, their own considerable salaries might motivate them enough. But the reality of football is that players do often need the sense of purpose that comes from playing for a coach with a vision. Which is why such coaches tend to be the most successful.

This is to say nothing at all about whether or not this will work.

The task of teaching this football to these players in such a short span of time is a huge one. We do not know yet whether De Zerbi will arrive with the full version of his game model, or a diluted one to get through the season’s final seven games.

It might prove to be too much to take on board — too confusing, too different from what Spurs have tried to do previously under Frank and Tudor. It does not take a huge imaginative leap to picture the goalkeeper, whether Antonin Kinsky or Guglielmo Vicario, standing with his foot on the ball, waiting to be pressed, hoping that there will be a spare man to pass to, panicking when there is not, coughing up possession and an easy goal.

And if it fails, and Spurs are relegated for the first time since the 1970s, then this whole argument will look ridiculous. Because why would anyone cling to something as ephemeral as an idea when what they really needed was a common-sense method to win football matches?

But this is the bet that Tottenham have taken. They have invested everything in the hope that De Zerbi’s originality and conviction are what is needed to unlock the minds of these players. If he can convince them all to commit to this, they could start, finally, to turn back into the players they were meant to be, and from individuals back into a team.

If he can do that in the short time available, then Spurs will stay up this season and have a bright future. If he cannot, then this will be one of the most expensive mistakes in modern football history.

It is a high-stakes gamble, an all-in wager on the idea of having an idea.

There have been so many moments and junctures this season that felt like they could be pivotal, weeks where it has felt like the future of Tottenham Hotspur has been at stake. And yet, for now at least, almost all of those weeks pale into insignificance compared to what has happened since Spurs were beaten 3-0 at home by Nottingham Forest on March 22.

The surprise is not that Igor Tudor was relieved of his duties one week after the Forest game. That had felt inevitable all week, given the stakes of that match and how Spurs wilted — yet again — after going 1-0 down. His 44-day, seven-game tenure never got off the ground. He was never able to give Spurs what they truly needed; new ideas, new energy, a new direction back up the table.

But most people 10 days ago would have expected Tottenham to replace Tudor with another interim appointment, someone else to jump aboard the sinking ship, repair it, sail it to safer waters before handing over the wheel to someone else in the summer.

If they could just find someone who combined Tudor’s pragmatism and with more knowledge of the Premier League, or more knowledge of Spurs, and bring everyone together, then they might be able to find a route out of this.

What no one really expected was for Tottenham to ignore the very concept of a firefighter and instead go for the polar opposite.

They have not gone for pragmatism, but for one of the most ideological managers of his era. They have not gone for easily learnable football, but for an infamously complicated playing style.

They have not gone for a uniter, but a controversial figure who already has a section of the fanbase campaigning against him. They have not gone for a safe pair of hands, but one of the most notoriously combustible figures in the game. And they have not given him another short-term deal, but a five-year one.

Under different circumstances, Tottenham’s decision to appoint Roberto De Zerbi would have made perfect sense. Spurs first considered him as far back as summer 2023, when they appointed Ange Postecoglou from Celtic instead. Like Postecoglou, De Zerbi guarantees an attractive, original style of the sort Tottenham have always wanted.

But appointing De Zerbi now, with Spurs in such a perilous position in the league and at risk of relegation, is one of the biggest managerial risks any team has taken in years.

The fascinating thing about this appointment is that the risk does not only belong to Spurs. When you are one point ahead of the relegation zone with seven games left, anything you do is a risk. Spurs have not had a risk-free option all season.

But De Zerbi, less than two months on from his departure from Marseille, could easily have chosen to spend the next few months on holiday waiting for his next job. And that was his initial intention when Spurs first approached him. But in the end, he has decided to jump aboard the ship.

The road to De Zerbi’s appointment at Tottenham did not just start with the defeat by Forest. He had been in Tottenham’s thinking for some time. Spurs sacked Thomas Frank on the same day — February 11 — that De Zerbi left Marseille by mutual consent.

Fabio Paratici, who by this point had left Spurs for Fiorentina, had argued the case internally for pursuing De Zerbi. But the timing did not work out, with the ink barely dry on De Zerbi’s Marseille separation. He wanted to wait. Tottenham ended up going for another Paratici recommendation, another former Marseille manager: Tudor.

The logic made sense. Tudor had a good track record with short-term jobs. He had a focus on fitness and organisation which Spurs needed. He had the aura that comes from having been a top player himself. If he could keep the club in the Premier League, they could go into a much richer managerial marketplace in the summer. It could have been a more natural way to land someone like De Zerbi.

But it simply did not work. Tudor was not able to lift the confidence of the players and get the quick bounce that everyone had hoped for. Tudor’s Spurs lost their first four games, but the third and fourth of those were disastrous: they conceded three goals in 12 minutes in a 3-1 home defeat by Crystal Palace, and then were 4-0 down inside 22 minutes at Atletico Madrid in the Champions League. It was clear that something needed to change.

With the Tudor experiment failing, Tottenham knew that they needed to try something else. And not another interim either. They had tried that and it had not worked.

They decided to look again for an elite manager, someone proven who could come in, make an instant impact, keep Spurs up, and then build into the future. They knew that it was a hard time to appoint a manager, with the threat of relegation looming so large. This is a job opening with a significant downside risk.

So earlier this month, Tottenham started to think about who they might get to replace Tudor, not another interim but a big-name permanent appointment. De Zerbi was always their first choice, although they also had to explore the possibility of backup options in case they were unable to land their top target. They tried to get De Zerbi in the middle of March, so that he, rather than Tudor, could have the Nottingham Forest game. But the answer was still no.

But he was not the only candidate Spurs were looking at. There was another manager on their radar, someone who was proven in the Premier League, someone who Spurs had looked very hard at more than once before. And that was Marco Silva at Fulham.

This is Silva’s fifth season at Fulham and the last on his current contract. He has taken them from the Championship and given them the Premier League permanence they had craved for so long, playing some attractive football while also operating within PSR limitations.

It is a hugely impressive body of work which has naturally attracted some bigger Premier League teams along the way. Tottenham looked at Silva at the end of the 2022-23 season, and he got down to the last three candidates before the club eventually went for Postecoglou.

Then, at the end of last season, when Postecoglou was on his way out, Spurs looked at Silva again. By the end of the process, it was either him or Thomas Frank. And Spurs went with Frank.

The question was whether, now in March 2026, at the third time of asking, Silva might finally end up in north London. Tottenham never made an official approach, but explored the possibility via intermediaries. The indications were that Silva’s camp were interested in the opportunity. As it stands, remember, Silva is out of contract in a few weeks’ time. Tottenham might have offered him a better deal long into the future.

But the decisive factor was Fulham’s own stance. They would not countenance losing their popular manager, their best of the modern era, to a Premier League rival during the course of the season. Certainly not without significant compensation. Fulham still want Silva to sign a new deal.

So even though this never got to the point of an official club-to-club approach, Fulham always knew that ultimately the power lay in their hands. Premier League Rule J.3 states that managers and coaches cannot simply quit one Premier League (or EFL) club and move to another “without the consent” of the club they work for. So Fulham knew that they could effectively block any proposed move.

With Silva off the table, De Zerbi became the sole focus. Tottenham had already been exploring their options before the Forest defeat on March 22, but that focused minds that a change had to be made. And over the course of last week, Spurs slowly started to change De Zerbi’s mind.

Of course, it is inescapable that De Zerbi has had the leverage in negotiations. Tottenham need him more than he needs them. But by the end of last week, the indications were that he could be persuaded to take the job. And it was on Friday evening, as the noise around De Zerbi intensified, that three Tottenham fan groups spoke out publicly against the proposed appointment because of comments that De Zerbi made as Marseille manager in defence of Mason Greenwood.

Tottenham’s eventual offer to De Zerbi was far more generous than you would normally expect for an out-of-work manager with a reputation for volatility and a habit for not staying long in any job: a five-year deal with a salary that makes him one of the best-paid managers in the league.

But that is the reality of Tottenham’s predicament. They are in an unprecedented situation, on the brink of the relegation zone with just seven games left. They have tried a short-term option and only lost more time and more ground in doing so. Now they have gone back into the other direction, aiming high, for the best available manager on the marketplace, with the most exciting style of play.

This time, for the future of Tottenham Hotspur, it has to work.

Should Tottenham Hotspur succeed in persuading Roberto De Zerbi to become their third head coach of the season, it would further alienate a section of the fanbase at a time when the club desperately needs unity.

Three Spurs supporters’ groups — all officially recognised by the club — have come out in opposition to the pursuit of De Zerbi, citing his public backing for Mason Greenwood, and, judging from social media, others share the reservations about the former Marseille head coach.

There are also Spurs fans who enthusiastically support the idea of De Zerbi, as a leading coach and one of the few genuinely exciting out-of-work candidates on the market.

For context, in 2022, Greenwood was charged with one count of attempted rape, one count of controlling and coercive behaviour and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. All three charges related to the same woman.

The former Manchester United forward had been due to stand trial, but the charges were discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in early February 2023. The CPS said that “a combination of the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction”.

Greenwood has consistently denied wrongdoing.

As Marseille coach, De Zerbi championed the signing of Greenwood from United in July 2024 and repeatedly backed him as a player and person during their 18 months working together.

In November 2025, for example, De Zerbi described Greenwood as a “good person” and added: “It saddens me what happened to him because I know a very different person from the one portrayed in England.”

There are differing views on De Zerbi’s approach to Greenwood, but what matters for Spurs is that a portion of the fanbase — however small it might be — may never accept the 46-year-old.

This should be a concern for Tottenham at the best of times, but these are dire times, as the previously unthinkable prospect of relegation looms over the club.

Spurs are in freefall, just one point above the drop zone with seven league games to play, and there has probably never been a greater disconnect between the fanbase and the club.

Like any club, Spurs stand a better chance of being successful (or even functional) if they are aligned with fans, and their most successful period in recent memory, Mauricio Pochettino’s 2014-19 tenure, was characterised by a thread of unity that ran from boardroom to terraces right through the team.

Rightly or wrongly, the new manager will be the face and voice of the club, Spurs’ de facto leader and spokesperson, and the most important individual in rebuilding a broken institution.

A striking element of Igor Tudor’s final game in charge — the 3-0 home defeat to relegation rivals Nottingham Forest, which spelt the end of the Croatian’s disastrous seven-game interregnum — was the togetherness displayed by supporters before the match, as thousands of fans greeted the team bus outside the stadium.

This newfound spirit is threatened by the appointment of De Zerbi, who would divide fans from day one.

Admittedly, rehiring Pochettino is perhaps the only appointment which would truly unite the entire fanbase, and the United States head coach is unavailable until after the World Cup (and yesterday suggested he was open to staying on even longer).

But no other candidate would repel a section of supporters as fundamentally as De Zerbi.

If, say, Spurs targeted Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola (and if they are prepared to make De Zerbi one of the highest-paid coaches in the Premier League, it is reasonable to assume that extracting Iraola from the final few months of his contract is not beyond the realms of possibility), some fans would inevitably be unmoved by the Spaniard’s style of play or personality.

But the Iraola doubters would be able to put their concerns aside for the sake of their club, and get behind the new manager and his team.

The supporters who oppose De Zerbi do so on a far more profound level, viewing his backing of Greenwood as a question of values, morality and decency — going way beyond surface-level concerns about personality or tactics.

Appointing De Zerbi, therefore, leaves Spurs at risk of being mired in yet another draining managerial culture war — following partisan divisions among the fanbase over Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Ange Postecoglou.

There are other factors to consider too, including whether De Zerbi’s tactics, outspoken personality and man-management techniques are suited to a seven-game rescue mission.

De Zerbi’s Brighton & Hove Albion side took two points from his opening five matches, while he has made it clear he would rather take over in the summer, provided Spurs beat the drop.

Handing De Zerbi a five-year deal with a relegation break clause — as suggested — would also effectively rule out the return of Pochettino in the summer, robbing Spurs of the one candidate who could buy the club breathing space, and is also questionable given his record of short stays at clubs and Spurs’ own history of managerial churn.

On the flip side, the club — as well as De Zerbi’s advocates in the fanbase — might reason that he is a great coach and a working coach, immediately putting him above some of the most talked-about interim candidates.

There is also a case — and a valid one — that the only way Spurs can haul themselves out of their current mess is with a degree of certainty under a talented figurehead, in whom the hierarchy and the players can really believe.

Beating relegation is, for some, all that matters now and the way De Zerbi’s spell at Spurs may finish — which feels relatively easy to forecast — is altogether less important than how it starts, which is much harder to predict.

Perhaps upsetting a section of the fanbase should only be a minor consideration if De Zerbi can save Spurs from the ignominy of a first relegation to the second tier since 1977.

Such is Spurs’ predicament, there are no safe bets, however, and in pursuing De Zerbi, the club are in danger of breaching trust with a section of their supporters, possibly irreparably.

If De Zerbi accepts Spurs’ proposal, they must therefore hope he proves worth the money — and the fallout.

Tottenham Hotspur are pushing to appoint Roberto De Zerbi as the club’s third head coach of the season.

The Italian has been offered a long-term contract and significant financial package which would make him one of the highest paid managers in the Premier League.

While there is currently no agreement between Spurs and De Zerbi, the former Brighton & Hove Albion coach has emerged as the club’s clear first choice to succeed Igor Tudor, who left Spurs by mutual consent on Sunday.

De Zerbi has been out of work since departing Marseille in February after less than two years in charge of the Ligue 1 club.

Spurs’ pursuit of De Zerbi is not without complications. The 46-year-old is interested in the job but would prefer to take over in the summer, provided Spurs remain in the Premier League. Three Spurs fan groups have urged the club not to appoint De Zerbi, citing his backing for former Manchester United striker Mason Greenwood, with whom he worked at Marseille.

Tudor failed to win any of his five Premier League games over 44 days in charge, having been appointed in February on a deal until the end of the season. The Croatian replaced Thomas Frank, who had himself only joined the club in the summer.

If hired, De Zerbi is tasked with saving the club from relegation to the second tier for the first time since 1977. Spurs are 17th in the Premier League, just one point above the relegation zone, and could have slipped into the bottom three by the time they next play, at Sunderland on April 12.

Spurs hope to have a new coach in place in time for the majority of the squad’s return to the training centre after international duty, with the plan for the new man to have around 10 days to work with the players before the visit to the Stadium of Light.

Bruno Saltor, who had been assistant to Tudor, is overseeing Spurs’ training sessions ahead of any new appointment.

At the time of De Zerbi’s Marseille departure, his side were 12 points behind league leaders Paris Saint-Germain, having just lost 5-0 to Luis Enrique’s side, and were eliminated from the Champions League in the league phase.

He left Marseille with a 57 per cent win percentage, higher than any of his 34 predecessors since the turn of the century.

The former Brighton coach previously held talks with Manchester United regarding the possibility of succeeding Erik ten Hag as head coach. He was also considered an unlikely candidate to replace Mauricio Pochettino following his Chelsea departure.

Following spells with Benevento, Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk, De Zerbi was appointed by Brighton in September 2022 following Graham Potter’s exit to Chelsea. He led the club to a sixth-place finish in his first season, earning them a debut Europa League campaign.

While playing for Manchester United, Greenwood was arrested on January 31, 2022 on suspicion of rape and assault, and further arrested on February 1, 2022 on suspicion of sexual assault and making threats to kill.

He was charged in the October with one count of attempted rape, one count of controlling and coercive behaviour and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. All three charges related to the same woman. Greenwood consistently denied wrongdoing and the charges were discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in early February 2023.

In November 2025, De Zerbi said Greenwood was a “good person” and added: “It saddens me what happened to him because I know a very different person from the one portrayed in England.”

A risk worth taking?

Analysis by data and tactics writer Anantaajith Raghuraman

De Zerbi, while an attractive option given his Premier League experience with Brighton, falls squarely in the ‘roll of a dice’ category.

News of Tottenham’s pursuit already seemed to widen the cracks of an already fractured relationship between the club hierarchy and supporters.

There are questions over whether Spurs will be able to play his style of football, too. Brighton notably failed to win any of his first five matches in charge after he arrived midseason in 2022-23, losing to Spurs, Brentford and Manchester City, while drawing 3-3 with Liverpool and 0-0 with Nottingham Forest.

De Zerbi pioneered a build-up system of inviting pressure to the back line with passes before playing over or through that pressure with quick tempo shifts to create chances. As their playstyle map from the 2024-25 season shows, De Zerbi’s Marseille maintained a high line, dominated possession and created chances through central zones. But they also struggled to prevent opponents from carving out goalscoring opportunities.

Marseille adopted an aggressive front-footed approach, but it had structural deficiencies, with large gaps between the lines. This left defenders and midfielders with far too much space to cover when teams played through their press, inevitably resulting in mistakes.

Marseille’s 45 errors leading to a shot or goal in Ligue 1 during De Zerbi’s reign ranked only behind Nice (54). Their opponents averaged 0.14xG per shot, the worst rate for any defending team in that same period.

De Zerbi said in a June 2025 interview with Italian podcast Supernova that he “lives for the result” and that if he could, he would “put two goalkeepers in to defend”. Spurs might require more of that pragmatism than the expansive style that has become his trademark.

Igor Tudor has left Tottenham Hotspur after just 44 days in charge of the club.

There had been a sliver of hope after an encouraging 1-1 draw at Liverpool and a 3-2 second-leg victory over Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, but the damaging 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest on March 22 ultimately sealed Tudor’s fate.

The 47-year-old only replaced Thomas Frank as the club’s head coach in February, but failed to win any of his five league games in charge. Spurs are just one point above West Ham, who occupy the final relegation spot, with seven games to go, and they have not won any of their last 13 league matches — their longest streak in 91 years.

Here, The Athletic breaks down the big decisions Tudor got wrong.

Starting (then substituting) Kinsky at Atletico

The defining image of Tudor’s brief reign will be Antonin Kinsky walking down the tunnel at the Metropolitano stadium in Madrid.

First-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario was dropped to the bench for the first leg of their Champions League tie against Atletico Madrid. But within 17 minutes, Vicario had been summoned to rescue a dire situation, with Spurs 3-0 down and already looking like heading out.

Kinsky, who was making only his third appearance of the season, made two errors in possession which led directly to Atletico scoring. Tudor sacrificed Kinsky and did not even look at his goalkeeper as he walked off. It was brutal to watch.

Tudor tried to explain his actions a few days later in a press conference. “It was an act of helping to preserve the guy and to preserve the team,” he said. “Why didn’t I go to give him a hug? Because maybe he was angry. Maybe coaches do the things to avoid this scene and to get a situation worse than it was.

“Sometimes it is better to stay there and we hug each other at half-time. At half-time we speak and nothing (more), the situation happened there. It finished there.”

For lots of people it was cruel and unforgivable to ignore Kinsky.

Taking too long to ditch a back three

Tudor’s first game in charge was a north London derby against league-leaders Arsenal. He picked a back three of Radu Dragusin, Joao Palhinha and Micky van de Ven, falling back on a system he had experienced a degree of success with during previous spells at Juventus, Udinese and Lazio.

But it was never going to work due to Spurs’ long injury list. First-choice left-back Destiny Udogie has struggled with hamstring and knee issues throughout the season which meant Archie Gray or Djed Spence, both naturally right-footed, provided cover.

Spurs lacked any natural width against Arsenal while there was confusion over who each defender was supposed to mark. Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber were in total control for Arsenal on the right wing while Eberechi Eze — for the second time this season — kept finding himself in space behind the central midfielders and in front of the defence.

Tudor persisted with this formation until he was forced to change it against Liverpool. It led to an improved performance but Tudor should have rectified his mistakes before the costly defeats to Fulham and Crystal Palace.

A sterile midfield

Creativity has been an issue for Spurs all season, with playmakers Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison both having not played a single minute as they continue their prolonged recovery from long-term knee injuries.

Tudor’s attempt to solve this problem was to start Conor Gallagher, Yves Bissouma and Palhinha together in midfield at Fulham. Spurs struggled to produce quality chances and offered their defence no protection. Emile Smith Rowe, Alex Iwobi and Harry Wilson kept carving Spurs open on the counter and they should have scored more.

Pape Matar Sarr and Archie Gray emerged as Tudor’s favourite midfield combination. But despite being hard-working, they need someone alongside them to offer an attacking spark, which leads us to…

No Xavi Simons

Xavi Simons has endured a strange debut season in English football. For the first couple of months after his summer move from RB Leipzig, it looked like he would struggle to cope with the physicality of the Premier League. However, the 22-year-old scored his first goal in a 2-0 victory over Brentford in December and looked to be growing in confidence only to receive a red card two weeks later in a defeat to Liverpool.

Simons became the side’s main source of creativity and inspiration in the latter days of Frank, yet it appears Tudor did not trust him. Despite scoring twice against Atletico, Simons was not in the starting XI for the crucial fixture against Forest. Tudor brought him on in that game after Morgan Gibbs-White gave Forest a 2-0 lead but it was always going to be difficult to salvage the situation from there.

Tudor’s reluctance to use this playmaker was bizarre when he seemed to be one of the only attacking players with confidence — something Spurs clearly lack.

Post-Fulham comments

In an ideal world, Frank’s replacement would have been someone, such as former manager Harry Redknapp, who could potentially unite the players and the fanbase. The players needed an arm around the shoulder after the toxic end to Frank’s reign. Following their disappointing defeat to Fulham, Tudor publicly criticised the squad.

“We are lacking when we attack, we lack the quality to score the goal,” Tudor said. “We are lacking in the middle to run and we are lacking behind to stay there to suffer and not concede the goal. So, an amazing situation.”

It is a risky tactic for any head coach — let alone a newly appointed one — to call out his players. It felt unnecessary and counter-productive for Tudor to challenge a group of players he barely knew.

Panicked subs vs Crystal Palace

Van de Ven’s red card was a game-changing moment in Tottenham’s 3-1 defeat to Crystal Palace. Tudor’s reaction to the defender’s dismissal turned it into a defining one. Bissouma and Gallagher replaced Souza and Randal Kolo Muani straight after Ismaila Sarr converted the penalty he won for being pulled back by Van de Ven. There were only a few minutes left until half-time and Spurs surely could have held out before regrouping.

Tudor’s changes signalled to Palace’s head coach Oliver Glasner that they were going to completely drop off. Mathys Tel, one of Tottenham’s best players this season, was shunted to the unfamiliar role of left-wing-back, where he gave the ball away in the build-up to Jorgen Strand Larsen’s goal. Spurs had multiple central midfielders on the pitch yet somehow none of them came close to stopping Adam Wharton, who ran the game in that wild seven-minute spell.

Tudor’s substitutions only created more chaos instead of preventing it.

Constantly changing positions

Pedro Porro, Gray and Palhinha have constantly changed positions under Tudor. Gray has excelled in whatever task has been thrown in his direction, but Porro’s form has been concerning. He started at right centre-back in the loss to Palace and struggled to cope with Ismaila Sarr. Liverpool’s teenage winger Rio Ngumoha tormented Porro when he played in his preferred role of right-back at Anfield.

Porro played well in the second leg against Atletico on the right of a four-man midfield, but the Spain international did not have the same impact in Sunday’s loss to Forest. In the second half, following Spence’s substitution, Porro returned to right-back.

It is a dizzying amount of change for one player and a lot of different tactical instructions to remember. No wonder he looks far more emotional than usual when he plays at the moment. He slammed the ground in the first half against Forest when the assistant referee did not give him a throw-in…

Half-time subs v Forest

Tudor’s response to Igor Jesus’ 44th-minute goal was to bring on Lucas Bergvall and Udogie for Van de Ven and Spence at half-time. It seemed like an extreme reaction because Spurs were the better side in the first half. Tel was a constant threat down the left wing with support from Van de Ven.

Udogie and Bergvall were making only their second appearances after recovering from hamstring and ankle injuries, respectively. They were a little bit rusty and struggled to adapt to the rhythm of the game. Van de Ven’s performances have been erratic for weeks, but it still felt like a significant statement to take off the vice-captain, especially when he has been such a potent threat from set pieces.

Assistant coach Bruno Saltor tried to defend the decision after the game. “It was a sub with the intention to give more dynamic in the left side and have more legs going forward,” he said.

It did not have the desired effect and might have potentially upset Van de Ven and Spence in the process.

Failing to help Randal Kolo Muani

Tudor coached Kolo Muani at Juventus last season. Everybody hoped the Croatian would be able to bring the best out of the forward who failed to make a strong impression under Frank.

Kolo Muani scored in Tudor’s first game against Arsenal and was only denied a second goal for a soft foul on Gabriel. The 27-year-old set up Richarlison’s equaliser against Liverpool at Anfield and scored in the 3-2 victory over Atletico, but his overall performances remain underwhelming.

Kolo Muani has scored once in the league, which is less than Gray, Sarr, Palhinha, Van de Ven and Romero. Brennan Johnson has more goals for Spurs this season than Kolo Muani despite leaving the club at the start of January. Tudor appeared to have given up on Kolo Muani as he was dropped to the bench for their last two league games and was sacrificed after Van de Ven’s red card against Palace.

Kolo Muani’s reward for his stuttering form? A return to France’s squad for their upcoming fixtures against Brazil and Colombia.

Jermain Defoe, the former England striker, has been handed his first senior managerial role in charge of National League club Woking.

The 43-year-old, who had a distinguished playing career for sides including West Ham United, Tottenham Hotspur (over three different spells), Sunderland (twice) and MLS outfit Toronto FC, has experience working in the academy structure at Spurs and as a player-coach for another of his former clubs, Rangers.

Woking are 11th in the National League – the first division below the English Football League – and Defoe’s first game in charge will be the home visit of Eastleigh on Good Friday.

The club dismissed former manager Neal Ardley on March 1 after a poor run of form which saw them slip out of playoff contention and lose in the FA Trophy quarter-final.

Woking chairman Todd Johnson said: “Jermain’s achievements as a player speak for themselves, but what stood out to us during the process was how he sees the game, how he drives standards, and his approach to leadership and player development.

“We have a clear plan for where we want to go as a club, and we believe Jermain is the right person to build on the strong foundations already in place and help take us forward in the next phase of that journey.”

Defoe won 57 caps for England, scoring 20 goals, and was part of the squads at the 2010 World Cup and the 2012 European Championship.

He is 10th in the list of all-time Premier League top scorers, with 162 goals from 496 appearances for West Ham, Spurs, Portsmouth and Sunderland.

Woking’s interim coaching team of Craig Ross, Jake Hyde and Dale Gorman will take charge of the team for Tuesday night’s fixture against Altrincham.

Defoe will be assisted at the Surrey club by Paul Bracewell, who won the league title as a player with Everton in 1985, with Ross and Hyde to be on his coaching staff.

In the end, there was a ‘Blink and you might have missed it’ feel to Igor Tudor’s tenure as Tottenham Hotspur head coach.

The Croatian departed the struggling north London club on Sunday by mutual consent after seven games in charge. He is grieving the loss of his father, of whose death he had been informed after the 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest a week ago. A club who had hoped he might instigate an immediate upturn in results are still floundering, winless in the Premier League since December 28, as they look to stave off a first relegation since 1977.

Tudor spent only 44 days in charge. Even in an age when impatience and panic are rife across boardrooms, that is no time at all. And yet it is not the shortest tenure of the 34-year Premier League era. That dubious honour still belongs to Sam Allardyce at Leeds United — more on that shortly — even if fleeting stints in the dugout feel as if they are on the increase.

The 10 shortest Premier League reigns have all come in the past 20 years, and four of those in the last three.

And that underlying impatience is not limited to the English top flight. French coach Wilfried Nancy was fired after 33 days at Scottish side Celtic in January and, in the second-tier Championship back south of the border, West Bromwich Albion sacked Eric Ramsay the following month after, as with Tudor at Spurs, 44.

If their latest choice of leader does not induce an immediate incidence of the fabled ‘new-manager bounce’, teams are increasingly willing to look swiftly to whoever the next guy might be.

It isn’t always the fault of the club involved.

Top of the list remains former England manager Allardyce. Infamously, he lasted just 67 days and one match in charge of the national team in 2016, but his stint in Leeds nearly seven years later was even shorter.

He arrived at Elland Road after the dismissal of Javi Gracia (who also makes the list) with just four games of the 2022-23 Premier League season remaining, but could not live up to his ‘firefighter’ reputation for saving seemingly-doomed teams as Leeds slipped out of the Premier League, taking a single point from those matches.

Allardyce then announced he did not fancy the rebuilding job the Yorkshire club faced in the second tier. “At this stage in my career, I am not sure taking on this challenge, which is potentially a long-term project, is something I could commit to,” the then 68-year-old told reporters at the time. He has not managed since.

At least Allardyce’s eventual departure, upon the expiry of his contract, was respectful and mutual. Predecessor Gracia’s, after 72 days, had been distinctly impersonal.

As The Athletic revealed at the time, Gracia was notified over the phone, on his birthday, that his 12-game stint was over. He had picked up 10 points from the first six of those matches to lift Leeds out of the relegation zone, and they were still above the trapdoor when the club decided to make their second managerial change of the season, following the earlier sacking of Jesse Marsch.

If delivering the news as Gracia celebrated turning 53 was harsh, consider the shocking way Charlton Athletic dispatched with Les Reed’s services in 2006.

Reed was told his 41-day reign was over on Christmas Eve. Yet, considering how he was received and treated during his time at The Valley, his sacking may have been viewed as an early present.

He had been promoted from the role of Iain Dowie’s assistant after Charlton pulled the plug with the south-east London club bottom of the Premier League on eight points, 12 games into the season. However, during Reed’s six weeks as manager, they won only once and were knocked out of the League Cup at home by Wycombe Wanderers, then of League Two.

The club gave him a vote of confidence after that shock defeat, but the narrative had long since been set in stone. Reed was taunted in the media with nicknames such as ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘Santa Clueless’ as Christmas drew near, and he seemed to treat the club’s situation with a relaxed manner that alarmed those internally.

He was replaced by Alan Pardew, Charlton finished second-bottom, were relegated, and haven’t played top-flight football since, spending the majority of the past two decades in the third tier.

Retrospectively, there may be some sympathy towards how Reed was treated, but sometimes there can be little empathy when managers take on jobs at notoriously volatile clubs.

Under owner Evangelos Maranakis, Forest head coaches have had a very short shelf life. Ange Postecoglou, for example, must have known what he was getting himself into when he agreed to succeed Nuno Espirito Santo last September.

Forest failed to win any of their eight games under the Australian — the worst start by any permanent manager or head coach at the club in 100 years — and he was also unpopular with a section of the fanbase.

In the latter stages of a 3-0 home defeat to Chelsea, which proved to be Postecoglou’s final match, television cameras spotted that Maranakis had already left his seat in the directors’ box. It seemed obvious what was about to happen. Postecoglou was told he was sacked just minutes after the final whistle and immediately left the stadium.

Talking about knowing what you are getting yourself into, Watford have been the kings of the multi-managerial changes in recent years, with 18 permanent appointments in the past decade. Quique Sanchez Flores has been two of those (as has Gracia, for that matter, though his stints were both too long to qualify for this article).

Sanchez Flores’ initial stay lasted a whole season, when Watford finished mid-table in the 2015-16 Premier League and reached the FA Cup semi-finals, but the Spaniard left the club by mutual consent at the end of it. “The club and I don’t have the same point of view about the season,” he told reporters when the news was announced.

Just over three years later, he was back, as countryman Gracia’s successor, and the second time around, the two parties proved even further apart. Sanchez Flores lasted just 86 disastrous days. After one win in 10 Premier League games, and with Watford still bottom of the table, he was gone again.

Sometimes, managerial appointments simply don’t look like a good fit from the off.

Bob Bradley had enjoyed a distinguished coaching career in his native United States, including five years leading the national team that included reaching the knockout phase of the 2010 World Cup, before he was appointed at Swansea City in October 2016 to become the first American to manage in the Premier League.

He didn’t enjoy the best of starts as the supporters’ trust, which owned a 21 per cent share in the Welsh side, stated it was disappointed not to be consulted on the choice of Bradley. And it did not get much better for him.

Bradley was sacked after only 86 days and 11 games, having picked up just eight points and watched his team concede 29 goals in those matches. He did not take the decision well, accusing Swansea officials of listening to negative voices from the outside and abandoning the plan that had been put in place.

“You can look at even top managers and recognise that in a league as competitive as the Premier League, anyone can go through a stretch of 10 or 11 games where you don’t get the results you should,” he told BBC Radio Wales at the time.

He is right, of course, but in the modern game, not many managers survive such a sequence of poor form — even if they have not been in the job long.

The stakes in the Premier League are simply too high for teams to show much patience and the honeymoon period for a new appointment can be fleeting, as Tudor has now discovered.

Three Tottenham Hotspur supporters’ groups have urged the club against pursuing Roberto De Zerbi as head coach, citing the Italian’s public backing for Mason Greenwood.

In statements released simultaneously on Friday, Proud Lilywhites, Tottenham’s official LGBTQ+ supporters’ association, Women of the Lane, their supporters’ association for women, and Spurs Reach – Spurs’ race, ethnicity and cultural heritage supporters’ association – urged the club to consider its “values”.

People with knowledge of the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, have confirmed that Spurs are pursuing De Zerbi, who is out of work after leaving Marseille, as they consider alternatives to Igor Tudor as head coach.

De Zerbi was Marseille coach when Greenwood joined the club from Manchester United in July 2024, and frequently backed the forward in public during their time together in the south of France.

Greenwood did not represent United again after he was arrested in January 2022. It was then decided that Greenwood would resume his career away from Old Trafford after the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) discontinued the case against him for attempted rape, assault, and coercive control. The CPS said that “a combination of the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction”. Greenwood denied all the allegations against him.

In spite of Spurs’ pursuit, the indications are that De Zerbi, the former Brighton & Hove Albion head coach, would prefer to wait until the summer until returning to football, having left the Ligue 1 club by mutual consent on February 11.

In its statement, Proud Lilywhites reminded Tottenham that the club is responsible for setting standards which “shape how people feel, who feels welcome, and what behaviour is seen as acceptable” and added: “The manager plays a huge role in that.”

The group’s statement continued: “When someone in that position publicly defends a player like Mason Greenwood, and frames it in a way that downplays the seriousness of what happened, it matters, not just in isolation but in what it signals.

“We are proud of the progress that’s been made in making football more inclusive and welcoming. That progress matters, and it cannot be compromised or treated as secondary.

“We are not asking for perfection. We are aking for accountability, transparency, and leadership that reflects the values this club claims to stand for.

“All together, always. That has to mean something. No to De Zerbi.”

Women of the Lane’s statement contained similar sentiments. It read: “De Zerbi has publicly defended Mason Greenwood in a way that downplays the seriousness of male violence against women and girls. That raises serious questions about judgement and leadership.

“Clubs signal their values through the decisions they make. Who they appoint matters. The manager sets the tone, every day, for what is expected, what is tolerated, and how people are treated.

“At a time when Spurs needs to rebuild, that culture matters as much as anything on the pitch.

“For many in our community, this is difficult to reconcile with the club’s stated commitments to respect, safety and inclusion.

“This is not an appointment Tottenham Hotspur should make. It introduces unnecessary cultural risk without a clear, proven track record to justify it.”

Spurs Reach said: “Comments previously attributed to Roberto De Zerbi, including public remarks defending and contextualising Mason Greenwood following serious allegations have been widely criticised for appearing to minimise the gravity of violence against women.

“Regardless of intent, framing of this nature risks normalising harmful attitudes, diminishing the experiences of survivors, and sending a deeply concerning message about what is tolerated within the game.”

Tudor has taken one point from five league games since succeeding Thomas Frank as head coach, leaving Spurs one point above the relegation zone with seven matches to play.

What’s Greenwood’s history?

While playing for Manchester United, Greenwood, who came through the academy at the Premier League club, was arrested on January 31, 2022 on suspicion of rape and assault, and further arrested on February 1, 2022 on suspicion of sexual assault and making threats to kill.

He was charged in the October with one count of attempted rape, one count of controlling and coercive behaviour and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. All three charges related to the same woman.

He had been due to stand trial in November 2023, but the charges were discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in early February 2023. Upon the discontinuation of the charges, the CPS said “a combination of the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material that came to light meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction”.

Greenwood was suspended by United following his first arrest, and in August 2023, the club adandoned their plan to bring him back to the first team set up following a public backlash and reporting by The Athletic.

On September 1, 2023, Greenwood joined Spanish side Getafe on a season-long loan deal. The following summer, he joined Marseille on a permanent transfer from United in a deal worth up to €31.6million (£26.6m), signing a five-year deal with the French club.

What has De Zerbi said and done?

De Zerbi was Marseille coach when Greenwood joined the Ligue 1 club and pushed for the deal to sign the forward.

Before Greenwood’s arrival was made official, De Zerbi insisted “I don’t know his background”, and said he would defend all his players publicly “like (they were) my sons”.

De Zerbi was true to his word, often talking up Greenwood in public during the 18 months working together, as a player and a person.

“He is a player of an extraordinary level,” De Zerbi was cited by La Provence as saying, after Greenwood scored twice on his debut. “I am happy that he scored, as that way he will be less of a target for controversy.”

In November, 2025, De Zerbi said Greenwood was a “good person” and added: “It saddens me what happened to him because I know a very different person from the one portrayed in England.”