Tottenham host Coventry City on Monday 19 October (8pm BST, Sky Sports) and, on paper, this is the most straightforward fixture left on the early schedule. Newly promoted opponents, N17 as the venue, a crowd that has been patient but is ready to exhale. In practice, it is exactly the kind of match that has cost Premier League sides points this season — a compact, organised defensive shape digging in and absorbing pressure until the home fans start shifting in their seats and the anxiety seeps onto the pitch.
Spurs are 19th. Three points from six games. Winless. The xG numbers — they dominated the first half at Old Trafford, for instance — say they are doing more right than the table suggests. They are pressing, they are creating, they are not being outplayed. But football does not run on expected goals, and the psychological weight of that position is real. The Old Trafford draw last time out was one of those moments that captures a whole season in miniature: ten men down after Bentancur's dismissal, Solanke heading in a Tonali cross in stoppage time to claw a point back when the game should have been dead. Stubborn, yes. But also a team that needed to recover from a red card just to avoid losing.
So here is the tactical question De Zerbi has to solve on Monday: how do you break down a side that has no intention of playing with you?
Coventry opened their Premier League season with four straight defeats before winning their last two — first a 1-0 victory at Forest, then a 4-1 demolition of Newcastle on 12 October. Lampard will arrive at N17 with a side that has already shown it can hurt teams on the counter-attack. Against a Spurs outfit that is still searching for its first Premier League win, that is not a passive choice. That is a threat.
The specific problem a deep defensive block presents to De Zerbi's system is worth spelling out. When a side defends in two compact banks, the space between the lines — the half-spaces, the pockets just behind the midfield — becomes contested territory that is narrow and crowded. De Zerbi's buildup demands his players find and exploit those pockets quickly, with sharp one-touch combination play that breaks lines before the defensive block can reorganise. When it works, it is the best football in the league to watch. When it doesn't — when the passes are a half-second slow, when runners don't arrive in time — the ball gets recycled sideways, the crowd gets restless, and the low block does exactly what it is designed to do: make you feel like you are pressing against a wall.
Kulusevski doesn't need to beat anyone on the outside. He needs to find the crease in that low block and thread combinations through it — and that specific skill hasn't gone anywhere in 526 days off.
This is where Dejan Kulusevski enters the conversation. He will not start. De Zerbi confirmed at his Sunday press conference that Kulusevski will be on the bench, available for introduction after medical clearance for the first time in 526 days. That is a long absence — a year and a half is not small — and no one should expect him to return at full tilt immediately. But what he offers, even at 70 or 80 percent, is something specific and rare: intelligent movement in half-spaces, the ability to receive between the lines on the half-turn, and the technical quality to play quickly enough in tight areas that a compressed defensive block doesn't have time to adjust. He is not a player who beats defenders on the outside and whips a cross in. He is a player who finds the crease in a deep shape and threads combinations through it.
The likeliest starting shape remains a 4-2-3-1, with Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes in central midfield. Tonali provides the defensive screen and range of passing; Fernandes makes the forward runs that drag Coventry's pivot out of position. The flanks will likely fall to Kudus and Marmoush, who can operate both wide and central depending on phase. Maddison is back available too, and De Zerbi thinks he is ready to play, though whether from the start or the bench remains open. What matters is that the mechanism for breaking a low block becomes clearer once you have runners in the right places and the technical quality to find them quickly.
The tension Spurs can create is the key: if Lampard's defence drops too deep to prevent the ball in behind, the half-spaces open up for Tonali and Fernandes to operate in. If they hold a higher line to close those pockets, the pace of Kudus and Marmoush becomes genuinely threatening on the counter. That dynamic — between pressing up to close space or dropping to prevent transitions — is exactly what De Zerbi's system is designed to exploit.
Coventry are newly promoted and fragile. They have won twice and lost four times. But they have shown they can stay organised on the road, and that is enough to make Monday uncomfortable for Spurs if De Zerbi gets the shape wrong. The good news: he has the tactical tools, the runners in the right places, and a bench full of technical quality to adjust as the match demands. Monday is not a gimme. It is an opportunity — and one Spurs cannot afford to waste.