Roberto De Zerbi refuses to speak to Tottenham players, calls on 'leaders' to 'lead' - ESPN

LONDON — Tottenham coach Roberto De Zerbi called on the «leaders» in the squad to «lead the team» as he criticized the manner in which they conceded the first two of Aston Villa's goals during the visitors' 3-2 win in north London on Saturday.

Goals from Johan Manzambi, Nicolas Jackson and Emi Buendia proved too much to overcome despite a late second-half fightback from Spurs that saw them score their first and second goals of the Premier League season.

This is Spurs' worst start to a Premier League season after five games, with two points and a goal difference of minus-6, eclipsing their poor start to the 2008-09 campaign (two points, minus-3 goal difference).

Spurs were on top in the opening exchanges but missed several presentable opportunities to open the scoring and were ultimately punished for their profligacy when Manzambi broke the deadlock on the stroke of halftime.

His goal came seconds after play was restarted following Micky van de Ven's facial injury which saw him leave the pitch for further treatment. With their captain off the pitch, Spurs' 10-men duly conceded a sloppy goal.

Things got worse in the second half after Mohammed Kudus had an equalizer ruled out for offside in the buildup when Jackson doubled Villa's lead thanks to some poor Spurs defending.

«I don't want to speak about the first half,» De Zerbi told a postmatch news conference. «When we dominate the game, we create more chances to score. We play well. I want to speak why or better. I don't want to speak, but my focus is why we concede the first goal [when we have] 10 players just for one minute.

»In that situation we can stay stronger, we can communicate more and more and more. We can defend in a compact way. I put Bentancur as a center back