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Tottenham boss Roberto De Zerbi believes their dismal 3-0 opening-season defeat at Brentford shows his new-look side are "not a team yet" after a big summer of spending.

The Italian also admitted they lacked fight in the loss but felt they were undercooked for their opener, as Sky Sports' Jamie Redknapp labelled them a "team of strangers".

Spurs' summer spending is set to surpass the £300m mark, with deals advancing for Manchester City pair Savinho and Omar Marmoush.

Report: Brentford 3-0 Tottenham | As it happened

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But despite five of Tottenham's six summer arrivals featuring against Brentford, Spurs were stung badly by the Bees in a deserved defeat that epitomised their back-to-back 17th-place finishes after avoiding relegation on the final day last season.

De Zerbi said at his post-match press conference: "I think we are not a team yet, for a lot of reasons. We can fix the target when you become a team. Before (we) become a team, we can't say what we can do.

"We are not in the right point in physical condition for a lot of reasons. For the players, they came late after the World Cup because in Australia [pre-season tour] we couldn't work in the right way for the trip; we don't take risks for a lot of things.

"But (these) are not excuses, (this is) 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.

"I believe in my players, I believe in my club, I believe in myself. After the Hoffenheim game [final pre-season game last weeked], 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.

"We could fight stronger than we did today. We lost too many duels, we made too many mistakes in the timing when we wanted to push the pressure higher. We arrived second on the second ball; we didn't win one second ball, one duel, one tackle, and it's tough."

He added: "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 - the player on paper, no.

"You become a team with the players; they find the connection between them, they find the spirit, they find the soul - it's a process."

De Zerbi's two 'big conditions' to become 'a team'

Tottenham will aim to earn their first victory of the new season on Wednesday as they host Championship side Charlton in the Carabao Cup second round, live on Sky Sports, before hosting Newcastle in the Premier League on Saturday, also live on Sky Sports.

The ex-Brighton boss said: "We have to become a team, and to become a team, in my home, there are two big conditions: the soul and the style of play, 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.

"Until we reach these conditions, we have to suffer, and today, I think this defeat is important for us because maybe we woke up stronger than we thought."

He added: "We need time, but I think we are much better than we showed today. So, from Wednesday, we can show our qualities and who we are.

"But even if we win Wednesday or next Saturday, we need time to become a team."

De Zerbi admits starting Bergvall was a risk

Spurs conceded a soft second goal as Lucas Bergvall gave the ball to allow Mathias Jensen's saved shot that led to Vitaly Janelt's rebound strike.

Bergvall was substituted at half-time for Rodrigo Bentancur, and De Zerbi admitted he knew the 20-year-old would struggle with Brentford's physicality, but the experienced Bentancur was not fit enough to start.

He said: "Lucas Bergvall for the second goal. I think he didn't play badly today, even if I substituted at half-time.

"But Lucas Bergvall, in the next two years, he will not lose that ball in that moment of the game."

He added: "If you analyse last season, the defensive line is: (Pedro) Porro, (Kevin) Danso, Micky van de Ven and (Destiny) Udogie. And today, Archie Gray, JP Van Hecke, (Marcos) Senesi and (Andy) Robertson - four new players.

"Two midfielders [last season]: Rodrigo Bentancur and (Joao) Palhinha. Today, two midfielders: Bergvall (and Tonali). Why not Bentancur? Because he came late in the pre-season.

"In the pre-season, we worked with Lucas Bergvall. I think at the beginning of the season, the new project, it was right to play with Lucas Bergvall. But I knew before the game that Lucas Bergvall, in this type of game, maybe he could suffer more than Rodrigo Bentancur, who is 29 years old and Lucas is 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.

"For the plan, for the project, what the club want and what we are in the direction we are working, I think is the normal process.

"Even if we are suffering for 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."

Gray: Brentford outfought us

Archie Gray became Spurs' youngest-ever captain in a competitive fixture as he took the armband in the absence of new skipper Micky van de Ven.

The 20-year-old, who played at right-back due to Pedro Porro's late return from Spain's World Cup win, admitted the team lacked fight in the defeat.

He told Sky Sports: "It was simple really: we lost too many duels. They just outfought us all over the park. We need to watch it back: that's the main thing we need to do better.

"For whatever reason, we weren't up for the fight as they were. That's on us. For the fans, they were incredible, for us to let them down like that in the first game, there are no words for it."

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Tottenham Hotspur supporters have already seen Roberto De Zerbi keep their team in the Premier League. They have noted his passion, warmed to his enthusiasm. But De Zerbi ball had to wait. Now, Spurs must be ready to embrace the real thing.

It starts from the back. And the most obvious conduit to help his ideas take shape is Jan Paul van Hecke. The Dutchman has been brought in for £52m from Brighton not just because of his talent but because he is already au fait with De Zerbi's unique approach.

That matters because the full-fat version of his football can be complicated, even for professionals. Lewis Dunk, the erstwhile centre-back partner of Van Hecke at Brighton, has been open about feeling utterly lost during the first weeks of De Zerbi's time there.

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Having spoken about this to Anatoliy Trubin, De Zerbi's goalkeeper at Shakhtar Donetsk, he talked of his team-mates almost having to unlearn all that they had learned about football up to that point. "He opened a new way of playing," Trubin told Sky Sports.

James Milner thought he had seen everything football could throw at him, having been coached by Terry Venables and Sir Bobby Robson as a youngster before winning the Premier League under Manuel Pellegrini and Jurgen Klopp. But De Zerbi was different.

Speaking to Milner, he talked of De Zerbi helping him to understand "how a team plays and why it happens" like no manager that he had worked with before. "He wanted each player in this exact position and to time their movements," Milner told Sky Sports.

"Finding that free man and how you do that is something that you have maybe done a lot in your career but not realised you were doing it. And then, [working with De Zerbi] pieces together exactly how that works and gives you a deeper understanding again."

It will have been a hectic pre-season for his players, particularly those expected to build the play. Because what might look like free-flowing football from back to front is the product of prescribed movements developed through constant repetition in training.

The rules can be strict. "I remember one situation, I played a good ball, but it was not the way how we need to do it and he screamed a lot," recalls Trubin. "So he demands, he wants, that everyone knows their role, how we need to play, one idea from the team."

It is not just the right movements but the right timing of them. As Dunk has explained, the Brighton players knew every scenario, where the pressure would be arriving from, and how to create the passing lanes that would open up the pitch to beat that pressure.

All of which is a long-winded way of pointing out why Van Hecke, now 26 years old and with over 100 Premier League appearances to his name, is more than just a fine player in his prime. He is an essential figure if De Zerbi is to get his ideas across quickly this season.

Adjusting to this bravery that is required on the ball is not straightforward but that is among Van Hecke's best assets. In last season's Premier League, he ranked second for passes from open play and second for accurate switches of play. Volume and range.

His progressive passing, playing through the pitch as well across it, is much admired by De Zerbi, who has praised the balance between arrogance and confidence in Van Hecke's distribution. He is not afraid to play the difficult pass that breaks the lines.

"He is a strong, intelligent centre-back who is brave in possession and plays with personality," said De Zerbi upon his signing. "Those are important qualities for the way I want our team to set up." But it is how he gets into those positions that is interesting.

There is an aspect of Van Hecke's game that makes him truly unique, even among the elite players in the Premier League. Indeed, in terms of output, he is even more of a statistical outlier than Erling Haaland. And it all comes down to one particular metric.

Van Hecke is a ball carrier. And not just by the standards of centre-backs. Van Hecke carried the ball up the pitch on 597 different occasions in the Premier League last season. His nearest rivals in the competition were Declan Rice, Bernardo Silva and Jeremy Doku.

Now, when it comes to those carries that were pressured by an opponent, Doku was just ahead of Van Hecke. Understandably so. Teams are more likely to allow a defender to bring the ball up the pitch than a winger playing in a far more advanced position.

But this only highlights the gulf between Van Hecke and every other defender in the Premier League even more. He had 315 pressured carries, which was 133 more than any other centre-back in the competition. He simply does it differently to the rest.

The upshot is that Van Hecke carried the ball 10.66 kilometres with the ball at his feet over the course of last season. That is over four kilometres more than anyone else and twice as far as everyone bar the England defensive duo of Marc Guehi and Ezri Konsa.

Supporters will notice the difference. With Marcos Senesi similarly forward thinking with his passing, and Van Hecke committing opponents like nobody else, a team is being constructed that can play through the thirds. After saving Spurs, De Zerbi ball is back.