Roberto De Zerbi confident Dominic Solanke will score 10-15 goals this season

At 00:30 on September 16 Beijing time (CEST), Tottenham Hotspur will visit Liverpool in the third round of the English League Cup. Following media reports, Roberto De Zerbi's pre-match press conference was made public. This article is the first part of that content.

I have two more questions about the injury situation. You mentioned earlier that we need to be especially careful with James Maddison and Kudus. Are they ready to play?

James Maddison and Kudus? Kudus can play because his fitness has improved. James Maddison is not ready yet.

Regarding Dominic Solanke, this is clearly his second competitive appearance of the season. I'd like to ask how his form and adaptation are at the moment?

I've spoken with him, and I want to manage and support him in the best way possible, both physically and mentally. It requires two-sided adaptation because he's a very sensitive and delicate young man. What he needs is to feel complete and receive unwavering trust. From my side, I have tremendous confidence in him. I'm absolutely convinced he can score 10 to 15 goals in a single season.

He proved his goalscoring ability when he played for Bournemouth, so why can't he do it at Tottenham? It's the same sport, just a different pitch. There's no pressure here because when we play at home, as long as we give everything and play exciting football, the fans will always be with us. Of course, like any other pitch, if you lose a game or don't score, you might face outside criticism. But that's a normal part of football. It's nothing strange.

Dominic is extremely important to us, just like Maddison, Savio, and our other forwards. Our forwards are fully capable of bringing high quality to the team, and we need this quality. We need talent. We need high-level individual skill and ability.

Speaking of Dominic, the new England squad will be announced this Friday. He has played for England before, but given his previous injuries, it might be surprising if he's called up this time. You just said he's sensitive, so how do you plan to help him return to the peak form when he was consistently playing and being considered for England? And what do you mean by "sensitive"?

No, no, no. What I mean by sensitive is that he's very intelligent. Only an intelligent mind can be sensitive. Unintelligent people cannot be sensitive. Perhaps he suffered multiple injuries previously. Perhaps he felt his physical condition wasn't at its peak. Or perhaps he wanted to show different performances on the pitch. But currently he hasn't fully recovered to his best physical and competitive condition. His body is fine, but he needs to find his form through playing.

He needs to play tomorrow; I want him to play for some part of the match, whether that's starting in the first half or coming on as a substitute in the second half. I haven't decided yet. But getting playing time is extremely important for him. After that, I believe he can return to the excellent form he had at Bournemouth. I still clearly remember the Brighton vs Bournemouth match at the Amex; his performance was fantastic. I said to the assistant coach next to me, "Who is this striker?"

So the challenge now, which is my personal challenge and mission, is to do everything I can to help him and create the best possible environment for him to be in the best condition to score. We need to provide better service and attacking support, and of course we must continuously improve his physical condition. Then we'll have a world-class striker already in the team. Oh, today is his birthday.

Yes, but the key point is that he's been troubled by various injuries over the past two or three seasons, hasn't he? What gives you such firm confidence that you can bring him back to the key core status he once had?

I can answer that question. Why not? No, no, no. I don't understand why I should think negatively. Yes, he suffered multiple injuries last season. But so what? Last season is not this season. This season, let me emphasize again, we have a world-class medical and fitness team. We don't have a congested schedule of three games per week right now. For example, regarding tomorrow's match, it's been three full days since our last game against Everton.

For Dominic, I need to consider everything carefully. Perhaps giving him playing time in certain parts of the match might be the better option. This morning, I had a special conversation with him to understand his specific situation deeply. He might feel slightly tired, more tired than usual, but we need to trust in the positive changes we're seeing now, rather than dwelling on last season's issues.

The final question is about Richarlison: given that you've decided not to include him in the squad for this match and he's also not in the Premier League squad, is there any possibility of him returning to the team? From the club's perspective, what is his current situation?

I don't know. That question shouldn't be answered by me. However, we lost to Brentford 0-3 previously, and Richarlison was on the pitch that day. Perhaps you've forgotten, but I'm just reminding you to be sure.

Roberto, you were also an attacking midfielder when you were playing. I'd like to know if you still remember those difficult times when you were trying to score and create goalscoring opportunities?

No, no. I'm speaking as a head coach now. This situation can happen all the time in football, and it is genuinely a problem for us at the moment. However, if you don't have good enough players at all, that's a bigger problem. That's more serious. If you have a group of good players with quality and goalscoring ability, I believe this is not an insurmountable problem.

As I just said, in the match against Brentford, we had three goalscoring chances. In the Newcastle United match, I remember we had excellent opportunities with Pedro Porro, and last Saturday against Everton, we created good chances as well. Even though ultimately we couldn't score.

But I will never change my opinions and decisions about players simply because we didn't score in a few matches. I always emphasize that we need to train harder and work harder. We need to continuously improve ourselves. We need to understand deeply and analyze our current situation in detail. Find out what we need to improve and where we can do better. That's my responsibility as head coach. But tomorrow is a new day, a new game. We are fully capable of winning this match. We need to start winning tomorrow, to play beautiful football, to score goals, and to defend well like we did in the past two matches.

แปลโดย AI

เว็บไซต์ AF เปิดตัวแล้ว! ดูข่าว ความคิดเห็น รายละเอียดแมตช์ และสถิติครบถ้วนบนคอมพิวเตอร์ของคุณ เยี่ยมชม: www.allfootballapp.com