Tottenham Hotspur are still winless in the Premier League, and one late equalizer does not erase the problems that have dogged their season. But Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Manchester United offered something Spurs have desperately needed: evidence that this expensively rebuilt team might finally be developing some backbone. Reduced to 10 men and trailing at Old Trafford, Tottenham showed character, with Dominic Solanke’s stoppage-time header rescuing a point and giving Roberto De Zerbi something more important than a brief reprieve.
The result left Spurs with three points from their opening six league games and still near the bottom of the table. After spending more than £300 million on new players over the summer, that is nowhere near good enough. Yet the performance deserves attention for a different reason. For once, Tottenham did not simply look like a collection of talented players struggling to become a team. They looked like a side prepared to fight for one another when the game turned against them.
Tottenham Finally Show Character Under De Zerbi
For much of the first half, Tottenham were the better side at Old Trafford. They created chances, pressed Manchester United and repeatedly threatened to take the lead, but their finishing let them down. United improved after the break and Bryan Mbeumo put the hosts ahead in the 73rd minute. Five minutes later, Rodrigo Bentancur was sent off following an altercation with Luke Shaw, leaving Spurs facing the prospect of another damaging defeat.
Instead, Tottenham kept pushing. Solanke, wearing the captain’s armband, rose to meet Sandro Tonali’s cross in the 92nd minute and steered his header past the goalkeeper. It was a deserved reward for a team that had created plenty before the red card and refused to fold after it. Spurs had not won, but they had shown a level of resilience that had been missing during their miserable start.
De Zerbi’s Reaction Says Plenty About Tottenham
De Zerbi’s post-match comments were revealing. Asked what he liked about the performance, the Tottenham manager replied: “I like the red card.” He immediately made clear he was not endorsing Bentancur’s mistake. Rather, the dismissal forced his players into a difficult situation and exposed how they responded when the odds were stacked against them. De Zerbi called it the first game of the season in which Spurs had truly played as a team.
That is a significant admission from a manager who has been searching for the right mentality as much as the right system. He also acknowledged that Tottenham still need to improve their spirit, courage and personality. His point was that the response after the sending-off showed a different side of the team. The quality was not necessarily better with 10 men, he explained, but the character was.
Tottenham’s Rebuild Still Has a Long Way to Go
One draw cannot transform Tottenham’s season. They remain without a league victory after six matches, and the pressure on a club that invested so heavily in the summer is not going to disappear because of one dramatic finish. Spurs have struggled to turn promising spells into goals and points, and they will need to show far more consistency before anyone can declare the rebuild on track. Their next challenge is proving that the fight shown at Old Trafford can become a habit rather than a one-off reaction.
Still, there is a difference between a team that loses because it cannot find the quality to win and one that appears to have stopped believing in itself. Tottenham have flirted with the latter in recent weeks. Saturday offered a possible first step away from that danger. Solanke’s goal did not fix the league position, the finishing or the wider questions about the squad. But it gave De Zerbi a performance he can point to when demanding more from his players. For Spurs, character is not the finish line. It is the starting point. And a home encounter against Coventry next Monday could bring that elusive first victory to Tottenham.
Tottenham Finally Show Character as De Zerbi Finds a Reason to Believe