Roberto De Zerbi will not be in the Tottenham dugout when Ipswich Town come to N17 after the international break. His booking at Elland Road was his third yellow card of the Premier League season, and that means a one-match touchline ban.
The Roberto De Zerbi booking came shortly after half-time on Saturday, when he reacted on the sideline as John Brooks showed Pedro Porro a yellow card. It was a bad afternoon all round: Spurs lost 1-0, their three-game winning run ended and Mathys Tel was forced off before the break after Jayden Bogle’s tackle.
His first booking of the season came in the goalless home draw with Everton, and the second in the win over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. The third, at Leeds, brings the ban.
When does the De Zerbi touchline ban apply?
It covers the next Premier League game, the home match against Ipswich Town at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday 21 November, 3pm. That is the first game back after the international break, so De Zerbi has two weeks with the squad before he has to watch from a distance.
He returns to the dugout for the trip to Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on 29 November. From there, the next ban would come with a sixth yellow card of the season, or straight away with a red.
What can he still do on the day?
This is only a standard one-match ban, so it isn’t as strict as it sounds. De Zerbi can’t be on the touchline or in the technical area, and he can’t go onto the pitch before or after the game. He is still allowed into the ground, but he has to sit in the directors’ box or in the stand opposite the dugout.
Team talks and phone calls
He can give the pre-match team talk, and he can go into the dressing room at half-time and full-time. During the game he isn’t allowed to shout instructions to his staff or speak directly to the players, but he can talk to his coaches in the technical area by phone or send written notes down. He will also still do his media duties before and after the match.
Who takes charge in the dugout?
His three assistants, Andreas Georgson, Bruno Saltor and Andrew Crofts, are expected to run things from the bench against Ipswich, with the job of getting Spurs back to winning ways after Elland Road.
Calm words after the game, anger at the time
The irony is that De Zerbi refused to blame the officials once the game was over, even though Spurs are writing to Pro Ref to ask why Bogle wasn’t sent off. Asked whether Brooks should have gone to the monitor, he said: “No, I have big confidence in the referee. Nothing changes if he goes to watch the clip or not. I think there was the VAR, and if they didn’t take the right decision, I don’t know. But we have confidence, we have to keep our eyes on the performance where we can improve.”
It was a different story in the moment. His frustration on the touchline is what earned the booking, and it has now cost him a place in the dugout. We went through everything De Zerbi said after the Leeds defeat, including his problem with the Porro booking, and the full story of the afternoon is in our Leeds 1-0 Tottenham match report.
Does missing the touchline for Ipswich really matter?
Honestly, less than it looks. The real coaching happens in the next fortnight at Hotspur Way, and De Zerbi still gets the team talk, the half-time talk and a phone line to the bench. What Spurs lose is the touchline voice that changes things during a game, and after the way the second half went at Leeds, that is not nothing.
The bigger point is the result. Ipswich are one of the four games we picked out in Tottenham’s run before the north London derby, and with Leeds already gone wrong, a home win is the minimum. Whoever is on the touchline, that one has to be won.
