De Zerbi dismisses claim that Spurs’ victory was down to weakened Villa side

Roberto De Zerbi has rubbished the notion that Tottenham’s vital win at Aston Villa on Sunday was down to them facing heavily-rotated opposition. Spurs’s 2-1 success moved them above West Ham and out of the relegation zone with three matches to play, but much of the reaction focused on how Unai Emery made seven changes to his lineup.

Emery made the decision after Villa’s Europa League semi-final first leg at Nottingham Forest last Thursday. De Zerbi preferred to talk up a fine performance from his side that has given them hope they can preserve their Premier League status. Spurs are next in action at home to Leeds on Monday. West Ham entertain Arsenal on Sunday.

De Zerbi also made the point that the Forest manager, Vítor Pereira, changed eight of his team from the first leg against Villa for the trip to Chelsea on Monday. Forest stormed into an early 2-0 lead at Stamford Bridge en route to a 3-1 win.

“The first XI for Forest was maybe more changes than Aston Villa did, no?” he said. “First half … 2-0 for Forest and has anyone said anything? No. Villa had [Matty] Cash against us, [Victor] Lindelöf … I don’t know how many years he played at Mancheter United. They had [Tyrone] Mings, the captain of Villa, [Ian] Maatsen, one of the best left-backs in Europe.

“They had [Youri] Tielemans, who is normally in the starting XI … [Morgan] Rogers, [Jadon] Sancho, [Ross] Barkley and [Tammy] Abraham. It was a great first XI. I don’t know if they are better or worse [than normal]. I can say one thing – we played without [Cristian] Romero, [Dejan] Kulusevski, [Mohammed] Kudus, [Dominic] Solanke, Xavi Simons, [James] Maddison and maybe more players. It is better if the people speak about us than we speak about them.”

De Zerbi was asked whether the reaction had surprised him. “No,” he replied. “In Italy we are used to thinking in the bad way about this situation but it is not true. It is not true.”