\n<\/p>\n
Roberto De Zerbi has described \u00adTottenham\u2019s looming final-day relegation showdown against Everton as a more important game than last season\u2019s Europa League final against Manchester United because the club\u2019s entire dignity is at stake.<\/p>\n
Spurs, who lost 2-1 at Chelsea on Tuesday night, need a home draw on Sunday to ensure they stay up and West Ham go down. The Hammers, who are two points below them in the final relegation place and with a greatly inferior goal difference, play their final game at home against Leeds.<\/p>\n There were wild celebrations when Spurs beat United in the final in Bilbao to win their first silverware in 17 years. But De Zerbi made it clear that staying in the Premier League was fundamental.<\/p>\n \u201cMy focus is to prepare the next game and to make points because Sunday is the final for Tottenham, not Bilbao against Man United,\u201d De Zerbi said. \u201cThe most important game is Sunday because last season they played for the trophy, now we play for something more important. Because the pride, the history of the club, the dignity are more important than the trophy.<\/p>\n \u201cThe trophy you can win, you can lose and nothing changes in your life. You can have one trophy more. But the most important is to keep the dignity, to keep the pride, to go on holiday like this (with your head up) and not like this (with your head down).\u201d<\/p>\n De Zerbi was asked whether the players understood what he meant by dignity. \u201cVery well,\u201d he replied. \u201cI know they do because I\u2019m living just for Tottenham. I have lived the last 45 days just for one thing \u2013 Tottenham and for my players. I know them very well. Every one of them is focused on the target.\u201d<\/p>\n De Zerbi refused to dwell on the non-award of a penalty towards the end of the game at 2-1 when Micky van de Ven was wrestled to the ground on a corner by the Chelsea defender, Marc Cucurella. The referee, Stuart Attwell, ruled that the offence took place before the ball was in play. De Zerbi preferred to focus on a whole-hearted late push from his players, during which Richarlison cut the deficit with a goal on 74 minutes.<\/p>\n \u201cI would like if we play Sunday like the last 20 minutes because in the last 20 minutes we showed, I think, more energy, more passion, something more inside of us,\u201d De Zerbi said. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult but it\u2019s an opportunity for every one of us. When you fight for the relegation, you have to stay inside of the league until the last minute of the last game of the season. We have to stay alive. It is a big day for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Roberto De Zerbi has described \u00adTottenham\u2019s looming final-day relegation showdown against Everton as a more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}