Conor Gallagher says Roberto De Zerbi has changed the mood inside Tottenham's dressing room within weeks of taking charge, turning a team mired in relegation trouble into one climbing steadily up the Premier League table. Spurs have collected seven points from De Zerbi's first three matches, a run capped by a 2-1 win over Aston Villa that pulled them clear of the bottom three.
Gallagher's account points to something more specific than a simple change of tactics. The 26-year-old, who joined from Atletico Madrid in January and scored his first goal for the club at Villa Park, says De Zerbi has been holding one-to-one meetings with players to rebuild belief that had visibly drained away during the club's poor run. That kind of individual attention is a familiar tool for managers trying to stop a downward spiral, and it sits alongside the tactical fine-tuning happening on the training pitch - the sort of detail that separates a team going through the motions from one playing with structure, in much the same way that knowing the precise rules of a game, such as in blackjack what is the value of ace, changes how confidently someone approaches it. Understanding the framework you're operating within tends to produce better decisions under pressure, whether on a football pitch or at a card table.
Rebuilding Confidence Through Personal History
What stands out in Gallagher's comments is De Zerbi's use of the midfielder's own past as a reference point. Rather than issuing generic instructions, the Italian has reportedly reminded Gallagher of his standout second season at Chelsea, using that period as a benchmark for what he can still produce. It is a coaching method built on memory and reassurance rather than pure tactics - treating underperformance as a confidence problem to be solved individually, not just a collective one to be fixed through shape and structure.
Collective Buy-In on the Training Ground
Gallagher was careful to stress that the improvement is not confined to him. He described a squad that is "on the same page" after weeks of meticulous work in meeting rooms and on the training pitch, language that suggests a group previously pulling in different directions. Back-to-back wins against Wolves and Aston Villa support that reading, though two results, however welcome, do not amount to a survival guarantee.
A Fragile Recovery, Not a Finished Job
Tottenham's margin over the relegation zone remains slim, and Gallagher was blunt about the scale of the task ahead, pointing to the upcoming fixture against Leeds as the next real test of whether this form is sustainable. Managerial changes often produce a short-term lift as players respond to fresh voices and renewed attention; the harder challenge is maintaining that intensity once the novelty fades and fixtures pile up. For a club that spent much of the season looking toward the bottom of the table rather than the top half, consistency - not a single result - will determine whether De Zerbi's early impact becomes a genuine turnaround.