Tottenham Faces Injury Crisis as De Zerbi Backs Medical Team
Roberto De Zerbi will walk into Stamford Bridge on Saturday carrying one of the longest injury lists in the Premier League – and absolutely no doubts about the people trying to shorten it.
Tottenham travel across London chasing only their second win in 42 visits to Chelsea in all competitions, a record that hangs over the club like a bad memory. De Zerbi wants no part of it. His concerns are rooted firmly in the present: a patched‑up squad, a pivotal derby, and a medical department he insists is not to blame.
A squad stretched to breaking point
There is at least one welcome sight. Pedro Porro is back. The defender has recovered from his hamstring problem and is available, a rare piece of good news in a week dominated by scans and setbacks.
Andy Robertson, Omar Marmoush and Dominic Solanke have all been declared “good” after fitness worries, but the optimism ends there. Destiny Udogie remains out. Tosin Adarabioyo is a doubt. James Maddison has not trained for three days since the win over Coventry and may not make it. Dejan Kulusevski, who only just returned to action with his first minutes since May 2025 against Frank Lampard’s side, will be handled with extreme care.
Factor in the long‑term absentees – Lucas Bergvall, Savio and others – and De Zerbi could be missing nine players. Rodrigo Bentancur is suspended to complete the picture. It is the kind of availability crisis that usually sparks questions about sports science, workloads and warm‑up drills.
De Zerbi is having none of it.
‘Big confidence’ in Spurs’ medical staff
Tottenham reshaped their performance operation last season, appointing Dan Lewindon as performance director and adding several new faces in July. The club will compile what De Zerbi called a “total report” on injuries at the end of the campaign, but he is already clear on one point.
“So far we can’t say anything bad about the medical staff,” he said. “I am convinced our medical staff this season is high level. I have big confidence because I know how they are working and they are good enough to believe in. We are suffering a normal situation in football.”
To back that up, he went case by case.
Porro, he argued, is a story of overuse and ambition rather than negligence. “Pedro won the World Cup with Spain,” De Zerbi said. “Maybe with the head or body he didn’t recover enough to start this season without a pre-season. He already suffered in the World Cup the muscular problem of the hamstring. He felt it in training and played anyway against Aston Villa because he pushed to come back before the right time and he suffered another injury. What is the responsibility of the medical staff?”
Bergvall’s setback came from an awkward moment, not a mismanaged one. “Bergvall turned his knee and felt pain in the first minute against Manchester United. He finished the game and the day after he felt pain. What is the responsibility of the medical staff? Nothing.”
Robertson’s issue, too, sits squarely in the realm of fatigue. “Robertson played four games in a row for Scotland and after that felt a small problem and did not play in Manchester. He played 65 minutes against Coventry and was fatigued. It’s normal fatigue for a player who played so much.”
The message is blunt: this is football, not a lab. Players push, tournaments pile up, and bodies protest. Not every strain is a scandal.
Stamford Bridge ghosts? ‘Not our problem’
If the injury list is long, the history lesson is even longer. One Tottenham win at Stamford Bridge in 42 attempts, and none since 2018. For supporters, it is a scar. For De Zerbi, it is irrelevant.
“What is the problem?” he said. “We didn’t play in the past for Tottenham and I was not the Tottenham coach in the last seasons. We have already many problems and this is not a problem.”
It is a revealing stance. De Zerbi refuses to let his players carry someone else’s baggage into a stadium that has so often swallowed Spurs whole. He prefers to deal in what he can control: attitude, structure, the few fit bodies he has left.
Tottenham will arrive in west London depleted, under pressure and with statistics stacked against them. Their head coach, though, has drawn his battle lines clearly. The ghosts of Stamford Bridge belong to another era. The injuries, he insists, belong to the realities of the modern game, not to the doctors in his dressing room.
The only verdict that will matter now comes on Saturday night, under the lights, with a patched‑up squad trying to rewrite a fixture that has punished Tottenham for decades.
