"Last season was a stressful season, unacceptable from our side." That's Micky Van de Ven speaking from Tottenham's preseason tour in Sydney, and he's not dressing it up. Two consecutive 17th-place finishes. A revolving door in the dugout. A fanbase that spent large chunks of both campaigns watching Championship football loom on the horizon.
Things needed to change. By most early indications, they actually have.
De Zerbi's imprint is already showing
Roberto De Zerbi arrived at the tail end of last season — after Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor had both come and gone — and steadied the ship just enough, picking up 11 points from a possible 21 to keep Spurs up. It bought him time. The summer has bought him tools.
Tottenham have spent seriously. Matheus Fernandes arrived from West Ham for £113m, Sandro Tonali came in at £133m, and a cluster of lower-profile additions filled out the squad before preseason began. That's a serious financial commitment to a manager who had barely two months to prove himself in the job. The board clearly liked what they saw.
Van de Ven certainly has. "He's brought a lot of passion into our group," the centre-back said. "A lot in terms of mentality and passion on the pitch. It is something we needed because everybody was a little bit down." When your team has narrowly survived relegation twice running, "a little bit down" is doing some heavy lifting — but the sentiment is clear. The dressing room needed an injection of belief, and De Zerbi appears to be providing it.
What this means for Spurs' season — and their odds
De Zerbi's brand of football is high-possession, positionally demanding, and genuinely watchable. It worked at Brighton and it worked, in glimpses, at the end of last season at Spurs. Van de Ven expects it to translate fully now that the squad has had a proper preseason to absorb the system. "It's going to be more about playing football... more enjoyable for people to watch," he said. That's not PR speak from a player — that's a centre-back who's spent months in training understanding what's being asked of him.
For anyone pricing up Tottenham's season, the gap between 17th and a top-half finish is exactly the kind of market that rewards early conviction. A settled manager, record investment in key positions, and a squad apparently buying into the philosophy — that combination moves the needle. Whether it translates to points when Brentford visit on August 22nd for the opener is another question entirely.
"The feeling of the team is really good, to be honest," Van de Ven added. "The guys who are coming in have been unbelievable as well. They have fit in well to the group." Preseason optimism is cheap, of course. But after two years of institutional chaos, even functional calm is progress at Spurs.
