Roberto De Zerbi had one name at the top of his list after Tottenham beat 10-man Crystal Palace 2-0 on Saturday evening, and it wasn’t either of the men who scored.
Archie Gray and Jan Paul van Hecke got the goals in N17, and Jean-Philippe Mateta’s red card after 13 minutes, for a studs-up challenge on Micky van de Ven, left Palace chasing shadows for the rest of the night. De Zerbi still went straight to Sandro Tonali. “Tonali today was unbelievable, incredible,” he said after the match. “We played with two players more. Tonali was the double today.”
That is some line from a manager whose side already had one extra man. It also capped a third straight Premier League win, Tottenham’s first such run since February 2025, which lifts them to eighth on 12 points after nine games. Palace are 18th and have now lost three league games in a row without scoring.
Why did De Zerbi rate Tonali above the goalscorers?
Look at the shape of the game and it starts to make sense. Spurs had 79.4% of the ball and 34 shots to Palace’s two, their most in a Premier League match since February 2016. Palace’s 20.6% possession is the lowest they have ever recorded in the competition. That doesn’t happen by accident against a side sitting that deep, and it needs somebody in the middle to keep the whole thing moving.
De Zerbi explained how narrow the margins were. “The spaces are very small. You have to move the ball quickly,” he said. “If you want to play between the lines, you have to be perfect, otherwise you lose the ball and you concede counter-attack.” Palace barely got one, and that is the part of the night we think he was really praising. Tonali did miss one of Tottenham’s chances, but his value here was everything that happened before the final ball.
He had help, too. De Zerbi called it “another very good performance” from Mateus Fernandes, whose cross led to the second goal and who has gone from being written off to being compared with Modric inside a fortnight. The manager also singled out Omar Marmoush and Dominic Solanke, “especially when we lost the ball”, along with Mohammed Kudus and Mathys Tel.
Was Archie Gray taken off at half-time because of an injury?
No, and De Zerbi was quick to clear that up. “Yellow card,” he said. “I didn’t want to take a risk for another yellow card. I’m sorry, because he was playing very well.” Gray had been booked after 15 minutes and, with Palace already down to 10, there was no sense in gifting them a way back into the game. Pedro Porro came on in his place.
By then the right-back’s night’s work was done. He had headed in Kudus’s corner at the far post for his third Spurs goal, and his second against Palace. De Zerbi says the youngster has been a different player since the trip to Old Trafford: “From Manchester United he is playing very, very well, as a mature player.”
Tottenham 2-0 Crystal Palace: should it have been more?
On the numbers, comfortably. Spurs racked up 3.26 expected goals to Palace’s 0.14, and Dean Henderson kept the score down with a run of saves, including the tip onto the bar from van Hecke’s header before the defender bundled in the rebound from the floor on 73 minutes. De Zerbi loved that one. “He’s tough, tough character, tough personality,” he said.
Asked how you make his forwards more ruthless, the manager had no easy answer. “I don’t know,” he said, before pointing to that second-post delivery, a pattern his side had already tried in the first half, as something they can do more precisely.
He was also honest about where this team is. “Maybe now we are not ready yet to play against one low block, so close, so aggressive, so small spaces, and it is not easy for the top team. Imagine for us in this moment,” he said. “Maybe in two, three months we can reach the right level.”
Is Pedro Porro ready to start again?
According to his manager, yes. Porro stayed on the bench at kick-off, and De Zerbi says that was the player’s own call. “Pedro is ready. We didn’t take risk. Speaking with him, he decided before the game, was very honest with me and I appreciate it a lot, because Premier League is 38 games, not one game,” he said.
It follows what De Zerbi said last week about a rushed return setting the World Cup winner back, so nobody at Hotspur Way will want to repeat that. With Gray this good at right-back, Spurs can afford to wait a little. There was a debut as well for teenager Luca Williams-Barnett, whom De Zerbi called “a big, big talent”.
Verdict: Tonali has been the difference, but Spurs can’t forget two weeks ago
The best thing De Zerbi said all night wasn’t about any one player. “We can’t forget where we have been two weeks ago,” he said. “Two weeks ago, before the Coventry game, we were last on the table.” He told his players the same before kick-off and again at half-time, and it was a neat echo of Tonali, who said after the Coventry win that “we haven’t achieved anything yet“.
What has changed, in his view, is simple. “Now we are playing as a team, and before the national break we were playing as many very good players, but not as a team,” he said. We’d say the man in the middle has a lot to do with that. Palace were never going to be the real test of it, though, not with 10 men. Leeds United away is next, and if Tonali can be anything like the double again there, Spurs fans can start to believe this is more than a good fortnight.
