Roberto De Zerbi has to fix his persistent Mateus Fernandes error

Tottenham Hotspur defensive midfielder Mateus Fernandes cost the team 85 million pounds, and when he finally started in his preferred position for consecutive games, Spurs dominated with their first clean sheet victories of the season. And Fernandes was the best player on the pitch, soaking up official Man of the Match honors in a breakout display vs. Chelsea, as well as a team leading number of tackles and key passes vs. Crystal Palace.

Earlier in the season, Roberto De Zerbi had inexplicably devalued one of his big star signings in two ways. Firstly, he was persistently playing Fernandes out of position as a No. 10. And then he did not play him at all for a bit, surmising that Fernandes still needed to show something to adjust to the Premier League, forgetting apparently that he was one of the best midfielders in the top flight last season for an abhorrent West Ham United side that got relegated to the Championship.

Once Fernandes returned, he proved the fans right and De Zerbi wrong for not trusting him. And so it would seem that he would be entrenched in that double pivot next to Sandro Tonali. But again, inexplicably, De Zerbi took him out of his best role against Leeds United, and Spurs lost the game 1-0, getting completely overrun in the middle of the park while creating zero chances, going back to their worst tendencies of not only this season, but the last one under Thomas Frank, too.

And a big part of that was going away from a key part of the formula that had won them their last two games against London rivals, which was Mateus Fernandes in that role next to Sandro Tonali, shuttling the ball up and down the pitch, breaking up play, and creating chances from deep away from the congested final third.

Tottenham Hotspur need Roberto De Zerbi to trust Fernandes and to keep him in the same position every week next to Sandro Tonali, build their chemistry together, and bring this Spurs team to their best level. Deviating from that is a recipe for disaster, and it is no coincincidene that Fernandes is much worse when he is not in his best position and that the Lilywhites as a team are less effective in that regard, too. There were so many other ways De Zerbi could have lined his team up against Leeds, and as the result shows, he clearly picked the wrong option.