Roberto De Zerbi showed his frustrations in a passionate conversation with Mathys Tel after Tottenham's goalless run continued in a dismal 0-0 draw against Everton on Saturday.
Spurs' scoring drought deepens
Spurs have now gone over 400 minutes without scoring in the Premier League, with their heavy spending in the summer transfer window yet to bring any improvement in attack. The home side mustered just two shots on target against Everton, prompting some boos at the final whistle.
De Zerbi is never shy in showing his emotions and the way he approached and appeared to admonish Tel in front of the Sky Sports cameras caught the attention of many fans. Tel was introduced in the 63rd minute for Dominic Solanke but couldn't turn the tide.
Fan backlash on social media
The Spurs boss was seen gesticulating while trying to explain something to the French forward before abruptly walking off. It didn't go down well with Spurs fans on X. "You can't be mad at him... Stop playing him," one wrote.
"This clown is about to lose the players," a second added. "His man management stinks," a third wrote.
De Zerbi's explanation
De Zerbi touched on the confrontation in his post-match press conference. "I can't say nothing as an attitude, as a behaviour of the players, no, no. I said to stay calm, maybe to not lose the confidence because we are not scoring, we are not winning," he said.
"Stay calm, improve, work hard and individually try to understand where is the improvement, no? I spoke with Mathys Tel just at the end of the game to explain what was his position today."
A second consecutive 0-0 draw leaves Spurs 17th in the Premier League -- the position they have finished in the last two campaigns.
Player and manager reactions
"As professionals you're going to look at that, six hours and we've not scored a goal? It's a disgrace," Ashley Young said on Sky Sports. "It's not good enough at all and there needs to be a big conversation amongst the players.
"The players need to talk and say: 'We need to take this on ourselves. We've brought in players and we're just not scoring goals, we're not creating chances and we're not looking like a team that's going to score'."
"We played well for the first 30 minutes but then maybe lost energy because our physical condition isn't the best and we are working on that," De Zerbi told Sky Sports. "We didn't shoot for the quality of the play we showed. We have to shoot more times on goal. We went inside the Everton area 74 times but didn't create the a good enough chance to explain the quality of the play we did.
"We have to work for sure and analyse the last decision. We made too many wrong decisions, but I think we played well."
Asked about the frustration of not scoring in the Premier League, De Zerbi replied: "No, I'm not a journalist, I don't write on social media. I just coach and I have to analyse the performances of my players. I have to analyse the potential situation where we could shoot, could score, could make better decisions."
