Tottenham Hotspur are rock bottom of the Premier League, Roberto De Zerbi is fighting for his job, and Arne Slot is suddenly the name on every lip in north London. Reports emerging from the Netherlands on Friday claim the title-winning former Liverpool manager is firmly on Spurs’ radar as a potential replacement for the Italian — and with Betfair already pricing the Dutchman at 5/1 to be the next man in the dugout, the question is no longer whether the board are thinking about it. Here are the five tactical fixes Slot would deploy from day one to rescue De Zerbi’s broken revolution.
The Report: Why Arne Slot Is Suddenly on Tottenham’s Radar
According to SoccerNews, relayed by GOAL and picked up across Europe on 2 October, Tottenham have placed Arne Slot on their radar as uncertainty grows around Roberto De Zerbi’s position. The Dutchman is available after leaving Liverpool a year after delivering the 2024-25 Premier League title, and he is understood to be actively seeking a return to club management. Crucially, Slot recently turned down the Netherlands national team job — dismissing claims he walked away over money as “completely false” — because he wants the day-to-day intensity of club coaching. That stance makes a Premier League rescue mission exactly the kind of project he would consider.
The bookmakers agree the situation is live. Betfair’s next-Tottenham-manager market, published on 30 September, has Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler as the 5/2 favourite, Kieran McKenna at 10/3, and Slot third in the betting at 5/1, ahead of Eddie Howe and Julian Nagelsmann (both 6/1) and Antonio Conte (17/2). De Zerbi’s position is not believed to be immediately under threat — CEO Vinai Venkatesham publicly backed him on Friday, insisting he is “encouraged by aspects” of the performances and that the summer overhaul needs time — but the mere existence of a shortlist tells its own story.
The Evidence: How De Zerbi’s £366m Revolution Hit Rock Bottom
The numbers are brutal. Five Premier League games, zero wins, two points — a return that leaves Tottenham rooted to the foot of the table, 13 points adrift of the leaders before October. A Carabao Cup elimination at the hands of Liverpool piled on the misery, and while the 445-minute goal drought finally ended with two strikes in the 3-2 home defeat to Aston Villa before the international break, the pattern of those matches has been damningly consistent: start brightly, create chances, miss them, concede something soft, collapse.
That collapse is all the more alarming given the outlay. Spurs spent more than £300 million — over €366 million by Dutch reporting — on the rebuild: Sandro Tonali arrived for an initial £92.5 million, Savinho cost £75 million plus add-ons from Manchester City, and Mateus Fernandes was another marquee midfield addition. Tonali’s agent revealed on 2 October that De Zerbi personally “showed up at his house” to push the deal through, telling the Italian midfielder he needed him as a leader. Tonali has started all five league games. The talent is there; the structure is not.
The noise is growing. Troy Deeney has branded De Zerbi “full of excuses”, while talkSPORT pundits Danny Murphy and Darren Lewis have both predicted the Italian will be sacked before the end of the campaign, with Mauricio Pochettino tipped for a romantic return. Add the academy grumbling — 21-year-old Jamie Donley claimed this week that Spurs “don’t really give you a pathway” — and you have a club in full crisis mode. Sacking De Zerbi would not be cheap, either: he signed a contract running to 2031 when he arrived in March, and the financial penalty for an early termination would be significant.
Fix No. 1: Rebuild the Rest-Defence — Slot’s 3-2-5 Would End the Transition Chaos
De Zerbi’s signature is positional, possession-heavy build-up — but at Spurs it has become a trap of his own making. Time and again this season, Tottenham have been picked off in the middle third, left defending 2v3 transitions with a back line stranded upfield. The home defeat to Newcastle was described as “far, far more damning” than even the horror show at Brentford, precisely because it exposed a structural flaw rather than a bad day: when the press is beaten, there is nothing behind it.
Slot would fix that first, because rest-defence was the quiet foundation of his Liverpool title. His 4-2-3-1 morphed into a 3-2-5 in possession, with one full-back tucking in to form a back three and the double pivot screening the centre. Liverpool conceded just 1.24 goals per game across his 113 matches in charge. At Spurs, that means an immediate end to the kamikaze spacing: one of Pedro Porro or the left-back holds, the pivot stays connected, and the counter-press has a shape to fall back into. It is less spectacular than De Zerbi’s maximalism — and infinitely more survivable.
Fix No. 2: Turn Sandro Tonali Into Gravenberch 2.0
The single most exciting tactical project awaiting Slot in N17 is Sandro Tonali. The £92.5 million man was bought to be the leader of this midfield, yet De Zerbi has asked him to do everything at once — progress the ball, shield the defence, arrive late in the box — and the result has been a player stretched thin across a broken structure.
Slot has done this exact job before. He rebuilt Ryan Gravenberch into the press-resistant metronome of a title-winning double pivot: receive on the half-turn, break the first line, recycle, repeat. Tonali has the engine, the tackling and the line-breaking pass to be Gravenberch 2.0. Pair him with Mateus Fernandes as the advancing No. 8, give him a clearly defined zone rather than the whole pitch, and Spurs finally get the midfield axis their €366 million rebuild was supposed to deliver.
Fix No. 3: Weaponise the Flanks — Savinho, Kulusevski and the End of the Goal Drought
Two goals in five league games tells you everything about Tottenham’s attacking structure: plenty of possession, precious little penetration. De Zerbi’s wide rotations have produced pretty patterns and no end product, with the £75 million Savinho drifting through matches and the attack dying in the half-spaces.
Slot’s Liverpool scored 2.01 goals per game because his wing play had ruthless clarity — inverted wingers attacking the back post, full-backs providing genuine width and overlap, and a penalty-box presence to finish the move. At Spurs, that blueprint unlocks two huge assets. Savinho, signed from Manchester City to be a difference-maker, would finally get the one-v-one isolation and overlapping support his game demands rather than being asked to improvise in congestion. And Dejan Kulusevski — nearing a return from his knee trouble, per Friday’s reports — would slot straight into the right-sided creator role, drifting inside to combine while the full-back holds the width. Add a fit-again front line making proper near- and far-post runs, and the drought that defined September starts to look like a system failure, not a personnel one.
Fix No. 4: Drill a Title-Winning Defensive Spine
Strip away the possession statistics and Tottenham’s deepest problem is psychological fragility dressed up as tactical naivety. As one brutal assessment put it this week: all you have to do is not concede to Spurs — very easy — and then score a goal — also quite easy — and at that point the game is effectively over. Heads drop, the structure dissolves, and the same defeat plays out on loop.
Slot’s greatest cultural achievement at Liverpool was making defensive organisation non-negotiable without making it negative. His sides defended in a compact 4-4-2 mid-block, pressed in coordinated five-second bursts, and — critically — every player knew his covering assignment. At 1.91 points per game, it was title-winning efficiency built on trust in the shape. For Spurs, that means drilling Micky van de Ven and Luka Vuskovic into a genuine partnership rather than two athletes improvising, settling the goalkeeper’s distribution triggers, and giving the full-backs clear rules about when to go and when to stay. Organisation is not the enemy of De Zerbi’s beautiful game — it is the platform it never had.
Fix No. 5: Bring Calm to the Chaos — Man-Management of a £366m Dressing Room
Perhaps the most underrated fix is the human one. De Zerbi is a chaos agent — brilliant, volatile, combustible — and his Tottenham has played like its manager’s touchline persona: frantic, emotional, always one bad moment from unravelling. A dressing room containing £92.5 million midfielders, £75 million wingers and a string of expensively assembled egos does not need more intensity. It needs authority.
Slot’s superpower at Liverpool was understated command. He inherited Jürgen Klopp’s emotional empire and immediately lowered the temperature: clear roles, honest conversations, no favourites, no drama. Players describe a coach who tells you exactly what he wants and exactly where you stand. For a Spurs squad that looks mentally shot — fragile after every setback, leaking grievances about pathways and roles — that calm clarity could be transformative. The talent in that dressing room finished nowhere near its level last season and is somehow doing worse now. Sometimes the most tactical thing a manager can do is make eleven expensive footballers believe in the plan again.
The Verdict: Should Spurs Pull the Trigger Before ‘El Sackico’?
For now, the official line is patience. Venkatesham’s public backing, the 2031 contract, the credit De Zerbi banked by keeping Spurs up last season — all of it points to the Italian getting at least the next block of fixtures. But look at what that block contains: a trip to face Michael Carrick’s Manchester United on 10 October, a fixture already being dubbed ‘El Sackico’ with both managers under severe pressure, followed by fellow strugglers Coventry and then Chelsea. It is entirely possible that De Zerbi’s fate is decided within a fortnight.
If the axe does fall, Slot is the outstanding candidate on the board. He is available, he wants club football, he knows the Premier League, he has a title on his CV, and his tactical profile — controlled possession, elite rest-defence, clearly defined midfield roles, ruthless wide play — is the photographic negative of everything currently going wrong at Tottenham. Hurzeler may be the bookmakers’ favourite, but he has not won the league in England. Slot has. For a club that has spent £366 million to sit bottom, proven over potential is not a luxury — it is the only logic left. Watch 10 October. If ‘El Sackico’ goes wrong, do not be surprised if the Dutchman is taking training by the end of the month.
