Pundit tells Tottenham their ‘biggest mistake’ in timing of hiring De Zerbi | OneFootball

Pundit Stephen Warnock has told Tottenham their “biggest mistake” aligns with hiring Roberto De Zerbi – essentially that they didn’t do it sooner.

Spurs have been managed by Thomas Frank, Igor Tudor and De Zerbi this season. Frank averaged just 1.12 points per game in the Premier League as Tottenham boss, and Tudor’s reign was a horrible one – in which he picked up just one point in five games.

His swift dismissal led to the hire of De Zerbi, who in three games is already on a better points average than his two predecessors.

He has the tough task of trying to engineer Premier League survival, with Spurs currently in the drop zone but with a chance to exit if they beat Aston Villa on Sunday evening.

Former Premier League defender Warnock feels Spurs made a mistake in ever hiring Tudor, suggesting they should have turned to De Zerbi, who might have pulled them closer to safety sooner.

He told Football Focus: “The biggest mistake Tottenham made was bringing in Tudor, before bringing in someone like [De Zerbi].

“If he’d have had the time that Tudor was given from then until the end of the season, I don’t think Tottenham would be in this position.”

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De Zerbi didn’t give Tottenham much choice

In hindsight, with De Zerbi having picked up a win and a draw in his three games, it seems he might quite easily have picked up points in the games Tudor struggled with.

But the Italian boss didn’t given Tottenham much of a choice.

Even in the days leading up to being hired by Spurs, De Zerbi wasn’t certain on taking the role this season. Indeed, TEAMtalk was aware that he would rather wait until the summer to take the job.

However, his stance softened and he opted to attempt to pull Tottenham out of the mire.

That he didn’t look likely to take the role even days prior to doing so was why Spurs had to look elsewhere previously, though given they eventually convinced him, they could have done so before giving Tudor the nod.

There’s a good chance De Zerbi would have had more success than the Croatian in the games he failed in, but all they can hope for now is the current boss being able to succeed in the remaining fixtures.