On August 27at 02:45 CEST, Tottenham Hotspur will host Charlton Athletic in the second round of the English League Cup. Following the end of the media blackout period, parts of Roberto De Zerbi's pre-match press conference have now been made public. This article covers the first half of that content.

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When you first took over the team, considering the timing within the season and Tottenham's situation at that moment, both you and the club faced immense public pressure. A giant club like Tottenham shouldn't be fighting relegation or even facing such threats. But now your circumstances are completely different. In this transfer window, the club has invested heavily in new players, and everyone is talking about how we have no European football this season. Many say this could be beneficial because most weeks'll only need to focus on one match. Can you embrace and welcome this completely different kind of pressure with enthusiasm? This is an almost immediate shift in pressure. What are your thoughts?

Not at all. In fact, since my first day as a football coach, I've felt immense pressure because I'm someone who sets very high expectations and standards for myself. I don't feel the external pressure people talk about regarding transfer spending. If I could, I'd actually want to spend even more money in this window. That's not a problem for me at all. Look at our competitors — they're doing nothing different from spending heavily.

The only pressure I feel is because I'm now working at one of the world's top clubs. So I desperately want to do everything possible to help this club compete against strong opponents and win major trophies. That's it. I don't know if we'll achieve this goal this season or next, but ultimately, this is my ambitious goal and personal pursuit. The club management hasn't forced me to achieve anything specific — they simply ask me to compete with all my strength and work hard.

But I believe we at Tottenham Hotspur are not inferior to any big club in the Premier League in any way, especially during my tenure. I can't comment on the situation before I arrived, but currently, our transfer dealings have been excellent and efficient. So why wouldn't we be able to compete? I genuinely don't understand why we can't. Tottenham Hotspur has the full potential to compete with Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, and Arsenal. I genuinely don't understand why some people think Tottenham can't invest as much as Chelsea or Liverpool. If possible, could someone explain this to me? Because I might not be that clever, and I genuinely don't understand the logic behind it.

You mentioned changing mindset. How frequently do you, your coaching staff, and the players have deep discussions about "changing the team's mentality" in your daily work? You just mentioned Andrew Robertson and what he can bring to this team. He has extensive experience in leading teams to consistent victories.

Excellent, absolutely right. Having a player like Andrew Robertson join us will help us tremendously. It will allow us to truly unite as one, because unity is far more powerful than fighting alone. But I think this requires a process, and yes, this transition won't happen overnight — it will be very difficult. Because sometimes you think you're in a better position, then you realize you need to work hard all over again.

But truthfully, this is a necessary process that every big club has gone through in the past. I don't want to comment on other teams — it's not appropriate in public. But if you look closely at the Premier League over the past decade — take Chelsea for example. Even though they won the Club World Cup last season, initially they needed two to three seasons to transition and build a truly cohesive team.

Of course, I think we at Tottenham Hotspur cando it faster, but regardless, we all need to unite closely, work twice as hard, maintain maximum focus at all times, and keep our mindset clear. We mustn't reject and destroy everything we've built through hard work just because we lose one game. And we mustn't get complacent and think we're good enough to compete and easily win the Premier League title just because we win one game.

Football is certainly not like that. We must maintain excellent balance in our mindset and deeply understand that this journey will be long and difficult. But perhaps, with the excellent quality of our players, our great club, and the enthusiastic support of our fans, we might be able to significantly shorten the time needed for this transition.

Could you give a specific example? This would help us better understand what you mean by "the team's environment must change" or examples of what still isn't good enough right now?

No, no, I'm not talking about things that went wrong or were incorrect. I'm referring to the players' mentality. You see, after two seasons of ups and downs, I want to experience five consecutive wins — winning five games in a row, which means you must change all your old habits, right? That means completely transforming the team's overall environment. The atmosphere of this group, which doesn't just mean the players, but also the medical team, the physiotherapy team, and my entire coaching staff.

Because I think we may not have reached our peak yet, but in the coming weeks, I believe we'll be ready to achieve three, four, or even five consecutive victories, like we experienced last season. Last season against Brighton, we were unlucky to drop two points during injury time, but we beat Wolverhampton away and beat Aston Villa too. Although we didn't get the full three points against Leeds United, our performance in that match deserved a win more than a loss. And that's four consecutive victories. And initially it seemed almost impossible for us to win even a single game.

Can I ask you about Sandro Tonali as well? After the Brentford match, you said Sandro Tonali, Fangfu Heke, and Senesi weren't in their best condition — or more accurately, weren't in the right physical condition at that time. Why is Sandro Tonali on this list? After all, he trained with you throughout pre-season and didn't go to the World Cup. Is there a specific reason for this?

Well, yes, actually there is. During our tour of Australia at the beginning of the season, we had to play matches every three days, and a single flight took25 to 26 hours. After such long and exhausting travel, we couldn't do intensive training under normal physical conditions the next day. When we returned to the UK, we couldn't start systematic physical training immediately because we still had a friendly match against Getafe to play.

Over the past two weeks, the international players who participated in the World Cup have gradually returned to the team. We're training in a complex environment with an incomplete squad and special circumstances. So I believe Sandro Tonali really needed more recovery time. In that friendly match, if you consider his performance against Hoffenheim last week, Sandro Tonali was actually excellent.

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