De Zerbi big winner of Spurs shambles even with relegation as Vinai, Lange make reckless cock-up | OneFootball

Roberto De Zerbi is a big winner of this shambolic farce of a Spurs season, with the board’s latest cock-up potentially the worst yet…

On Tuesday night, Spurs confirmed the appointment of Roberto De Zerbi as their new head coach.

Initially, this appointment seemed an impossibility, but Spurs have toiled away at changing De Zerbi‘s mind on returning to management before the summer, and this hard work has paid off, but at what cost?

We have already presented the argument that in Tottenham’s current predicament, they may have been better off going for a vibes-based appointment over De Zerbi’s hostility to get them over the Premier League safety line.

Time will only tell if that will be right, but chief executive Vinai Venkatesham and sporting director Johan Lange may well argue that they deserve credit for recruiting the best manager on the market at their time of need.

And out of the managers listed as targets to replace out-of-his-depth Igor Tudor, De Zerbi is certainly the one with the strongest reputation after being hailed by Pep Guardiola and others.

But Vinai and Lange have, somewhat impressively, turned an excellent appointment on the surface into a reckless cock-up.

It’s hard to argue with De Zerbi not wanting anything to do with this Spurs mess, having initially indicated that he would only take over in the summer if/when they had secured their Premier League status.

And to force a U-turn, Spurs were always going to be on the defensive and would have to offer several assurances to gain favour with De Zerbi or another manager of a similar standing, but they needn’t have done quite so much to get their man.

As per a report from BBC Sport‘s Sami Mokbel, De Zerbi has penned a five-year contract (which is bonkers enough) that ‘does not include a clause that allows the Italian to walk away from the club if they are in the Championship next season’.

De Zerbi is also said to be ‘fully committed to rebuilding Tottenham and views the position as a long-term project regardless of which division they are playing in’, while it’s previously been reported that his deal (which includes a ‘significant’ bonus for survival) will make him the third-best paid manager in the Premier League behind Guardiola and Mikel Arteta.

So, in short, De Zerbi has fully taken advantage of Tottenham’s dire straits and has ensured, in negotiations, that he will exit this situation as a big winner, even if his new side gets relegated.

There are several damning factors about De Zerbi’s deal, including that a manager who has had eight jobs in 13 years has been given a five-year contract, especially one who brings so much hostility and is incredibly unlikely to be any longer than three seasons at an absolute maximum.

You hope for Tottenham’s sake that his contract includes a clause to slash his wages if they get relegated, but you really wouldn’t put it past their hierarchy to gloss over this rather large detail.

A ‘break clause’, meanwhile, would have provided each side with protection should the worst happen, and it is utterly baffling that Spurs have not insisted upon this being included in De Zerbi’s deal.

Even if Tottenham’s run-in results in relegation, this clause would have permitted De Zerbi to escape with his reputation largely intact, because with most of the damage done before his arrival, he would not be to blame for them going down.

Alternatively, De Zerbi could become the saviour who keeps Spurs in the Premier League and can then look ahead to a substantial long-term rebuild in the top flight.

But without a break clause, De Zerbi will be a big winner of this saga even if he sticks around for the Championship, with the 46-year-old standing to earn an absolute fortune with a pay-off from his nonsensical five-year deal.

For lack of a better term, De Zerbi has absolutely had Tottenham’s pants down…