‘It’s Rubbish’ – Roberto De Zerbi Slams Negativity Around Tottenham | OneFootball

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Tottenham Hotspur boss Roberto De Zerbi has slammed the negativity around the club, dubbing it rubbish ahead of a crucial fixture against Aston Villa on Sunday.

Spurs finally earned a win in 2026 last week at Wolves, but the victory came at the cost of injuries to Xavi Simons and Dominic Solanke as Tottenham’s injury list stretched further.

The injuries, with West Ham United also winning, led to media focus being turned to questioning Spurs’ medical staff and pitches, rather than remaining on the positive result.

De Zerbi asked everyone associated with the club to ‘silence the voice inside of us’ as the voice can lead to ‘negative thoughts’ that say ‘we are unlucky, we have too many injuries’.

The Spurs manager slammed negative lines of thinking, dubbing it ‘rubbish’, and instead chose to focus on positive aspects such as the quality of the Spurs players.

De Zerbi said in a press conference: “Listen, I want to be clear one time.

“The most important challenge now is to silence the voice inside of us, inside of the players, the staff, the fans.

“This voice produce negative thoughts and the voice says we are unlucky, we have too many injuries.

“We lost Xavi Simons and he was one of the most important players for us in the past two games.

“Our medical staff is not good enough, our stadium pitch is not good enough, our training pitch is not good enough.

“Winning two or three games in a row no because we hadn’t won a game in 2026.

“It’s all negative things and it’s rubbish.

“I want to keep the focus on myself and the quality of my players.” 

De Zerbi also feels that it will not be ‘a miracle’ if Spurs win at Villa Park, as he called the Lilywhites a ‘big club’ while acknowledging that Aston Villa are ‘one of the best teams’ in the division.

“We go to play one of the best teams in the Premier League at the moment but if Tottenham win at Villa Park it’s not a miracle.

“Maybe we lose but we have the quality to win this game.

“We have to be positive because we are lucky to work in a big club.”

Tottenham are in the last chance saloon, with former Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp feeling that De Zerbi would earn hero status if he could stave off relegation.

De Zerbi himself feels that the Spurs squad have bought into his methods, an idea that has been reinforced by Marseille defender Facundo Medina’s claims that he was hurt by the departure of the manager.

Tottenham fans might be hoping that Villa’s loss to Nottingham Forest in the Europa League semi-first leg proves to be beneficial to their cause, as Unai Emery plots to overturn the deficit next week.

De Zerbi though, true to his words, is likely to focus on himself and his squad, irrespective of the line-up Emery chooses to put out on Sunday.