Kulusevski and Maddison return as De Zerbi’s Tottenham finally win in Premier League

First league win ends long wait for De Zerbi’s side

Tottenham edged to victory over Coventry on Monday with a familiar face among the post-match salutations. It was Dejan Kulusevski, playing 526 days since his last Spurs appearance, who came on in the 87th minute as the game was not yet won.

Scoring Spurs’ opening goal on Monday was James Maddison. Football’s king of the oche was absent for almost as long as Kulusevski. Last season, as De Zerbi attempted to arrest the slide towards relegation, ‘Madders’ initially sat on the bench on a vibes-only basis and closed out the season with not much more than 30 minutes of play, and had little time to do Maddison things like his arcing beauty against his hometown club on Monday, which opened the scoring for Spurs.

Ben Davies’s deflected late clincher sealed the win and, in the newsletter’s framing, catapulted Spurs up the table. When Kulusevski last played on 11 May 2025, Tottenham were 17th, the position in which they finished both that season and in 2025-26.

De Zerbi, overhaul and return

The victory was described as a first league win of the season to help Tottenham off the bottom. De Zerbi has been handed the keys and a control none of his predecessors commanded after a summer of upheaval. Ange Postecoglou was dismissed that summer despite winning the Europa Conference League, and Thomas Frank was appointed before being sent packing in February.

The transfer spend has been heavy, and when Kulusevski arrived in the 87th minute on Monday he did so following an absence where Spurs signed 20 players either permanently or on loan, at a cost of £530m.

With two of his stars back in tandem, De Zerbi’s enforcer intensity was credited with the turnaround. After a sunshine break in Marbella where, according to De Zerbi, his players became less a squad than a family, he said: “You have to play for your friend and your brother, not like 11 robot players on the pitch,” he cooed.

On the impact of the returning duo, De Zerbi roared: “With them in the dressing room there is another atmosphere.”