Roberto De Zerbi has made clear that Tottenham's demanding summer schedule, which combined World Cup commitments with a gruelling pre-season tour, has left several key players short of full match fitness heading into the new campaign.
The Spurs manager singled out new signings Jan Paul van Hecke, Marcos Senesi and Sandro Tonali following the club's 3-0 defeat at Brentford, suggesting none were physically where they needed to be. Given the circumstances surrounding their summers, the struggles were perhaps predictable.
Van Hecke's situation illustrates the problem starkly. The defender completed a £52m move from Brighton on 18 June, then twelve days later was eliminated from the World Cup with the Netherlands after a last-32 penalty shootout loss to Morocco. Just over three weeks after that exit, on 23 July, he was on a plane with his new club for a pre-season tour of New Zealand and Australia.
"It was a really short break," Van Hecke explained. "But I didn't want to miss anything in the pre-season. My first days [as a Spurs player] were in New Zealand and Australia." He described the trip as a positive experience overall, praising the passionate reception from fans in a region unaccustomed to hosting top European clubs, but acknowledged the physical toll. "Physical-wise, of course, it impacts your body," he said. "I struggled for one or two weeks."
De Zerbi, who only took charge in late March, inherited the tour itinerary and has openly criticised its demands. "The trip was 25-26 hours," he said. "We played every three days. The day after [matches] we couldn't work in the right condition." His preference would have been a summer focused purely on training rather than travel.
The schedule didn't end with the Australia leg. After facing Chelsea in Sydney on 1 August, Spurs squeezed in three more friendlies — against Getafe at their Enfield training base, followed by a double-header against Hoffenheim, one at the stadium and another at the training ground the next day with a different set of players. De Zerbi remained frustrated: "When we came back [to London] we couldn't work immediately because there was a friendly game against Getafe."
Senesi, who joined on a free transfer from Bournemouth, avoided the tour entirely as he was preparing for the World Cup final with Argentina against Spain on 19 July. His Spurs debut came in the Hoffenheim stadium match. Despite the lack of preparation, De Zerbi started him against Brentford alongside Van Hecke, leading to the pointed post-match comments.
Perhaps more surprising was De Zerbi's inclusion of Tonali among those below par. The £92.5m signing from Newcastle missed the World Cup as Italy failed to qualify, and had a near-complete pre-season, appearing in almost every warm-up fixture. That De Zerbi still felt he wasn't fully ready for Brentford underlined the scale of the club's preparation issues.
Tonali and Senesi were both left out of the 5-1 Carabao Cup win over Charlton, with De Zerbi opting for an intensive training session instead to sharpen their conditioning ahead of the visit of Newcastle. "Sandro was in a plan to work with Marcos very strong to improve their physical condition," De Zerbi said. "Sandro has to work to feel better in terms of physical condition, but on Saturday he will play in the first XI."
Other players caught up in the chaotic summer include Mateus Fernandes, who picked up a knock in Sydney and didn't feature again until the Hoffenheim training-ground game, and Dominic Solanke, who was sidelined for the rest of pre-season after an issue against Chelsea. Micky van de Ven travelled but never played, with De Zerbi attributing his injury to the long-haul flight. Pedro Porro, fresh off winning the World Cup with Spain, also missed all of pre-season, while Destiny Udogie and Rodrigo Bentancur are similarly working to regain sharpness.
Despite the win over Charlton, De Zerbi knows sterner tests lie ahead, starting with Newcastle at home, and accepts his squad still has ground to make up physically after a punishing off-season.
Based on reporting from The Guardian.