Tottenham boss Roberto De Zerbi offers little about the 20yo’s future.
Roberto De Zerbi offered no real reassurance over Lucas Bergvall’s future after Tottenham needed a penalty shootout to beat Sydney FC on their pre-season tour, and the way he chose to frame it will not do much to settle nerves among supporters.
Asked directly about the 20-year-old, who started his first match of the tour, De Zerbi gave an answer that read more like a shrug than anything else. [h/t ESPN]:
I would like that he stays with us, I think he’s a potential top, top, top player, but in the end I don’t want to convince anyone to stay.
Newcastle and Nottingham Forest have already had approaches for Bergvall rebuffed by the club this summer, so this is not a case of Tottenham being desperate to offload him but more a manager who seems entirely comfortable letting a player’s future play out without personal intervention.
Lucout?
Bergvall only signed a contract extension to 2031 last year off the back of a breakout debut season, one where he became a first-team fixture during a genuinely difficult campaign for the club. That he now finds himself needing reassurance at all says something about how quickly the midfield picture has changed.
Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes have arrived for a combined fee well north of £150m, Archie Gray, Rodrigo Bentancur and Pape Matar Sarr (the latter two not a part of the pre-season touring squad) remain in the mix.
None of his comments actually mean Bergvall sees himself pushed out the door. De Zerbi’s actual message is that competition for places will be fierce and Bergvall will have to earn his spot like everyone else, which is a reasonable stance for a manager assembling a large yet capable squad rather than a starting eleven.
But for a player who came across as one of the few consistent bright spots during last season’s relegation fight, hearing his manager decline to actively campaign for him to stay is the kind of unfair. It can be torn apart, fairly or not, by a fanbase that has grown understandably protective of him.
