Spurs patterns
De Zerbi at Spurs: the third-man run finally arrives
For two transfer windows the question at Hotspur Way was not who Roberto De Zerbi would sign but what his team would actually do without the ball. We are now eight league games into his reign and the answer is finally visible. Tottenham are not pressing the way Brighton pressed under the same coach, and they are not sitting the way Thomas Frank's side did in 2024-25, and that is the story. What they are doing, and what I want to write about today, is something more interesting: a deliberate third-man run that links the near winger, the underlapping full back and a dropping eight. I have watched it three times in a week, once against Brentford, once in the Europa League group game in midweek, and again on Saturday. It is not a coincidence. It is a pattern.
The pattern, in plain language
A third-man run is the simplest idea in positional play and the hardest one to coach. Two players combine against one opponent, then a third arrives late to receive. The first pair draws the press; the third player takes the ball in space behind the press. Pep Guardiola's Manchester City built half their goals on it for a decade. Mikel Arteta's Arsenal use a version with the left eight and the left back. De Zerbi's Brighton used it with Solly March, Leandro Trossard and the dropping six. We see the same idea at Spurs now, with three different personnel groupings, and that flexibility is the point of the exercise rather than a flaw in the plan.
In the Brentford match on Saturday the first example came after eight minutes. Yves Bissouma received between the lines, played a one-touch pass to the right winger, and continued his run past the centre back. The winger's touch drew the near centre back forward. Pedro Porro, the right back, had been hugging the touchline. He now curved inside, between the winger and Bissouma. The winger slipped the ball into Porro's path. Porro carried it into the box and crossed. It is a textbook example of the third-man run, and it shows up in the BBC Sport touch maps from the opening half hour. The second example came from the same template but on the left, with the left back joining the eight and the left winger acting as the wall.
The pattern matters because it is the first time Spurs have had a stable mechanism for breaking a mid-block. Under Frank, the team relied on long diagonals from the right back to the left winger, then individual duels. That worked against deep blocks and failed against any team willing to step up. De Zerbi's pattern works against stepping teams because the third-man run attacks the space the press leaves behind, and it also gives the centre backs a clear option if the first combination is closed down.
Why the eight is the key
The third-man run needs a specific player profile at eight. He must be able to receive on the half turn, play a one-touch pass, and then continue his run past the centre back. Pape Matar Sarr has the legs but not the timing. Bissouma has the timing but not always the legs. Rodrigo Bentancur has both on his day. De Zerbi has rotated all three, and the rotation itself is a coaching decision about freshness as much as about form.
The choice tells us something about the coach's preference. In the Europa League group game he started Bentancur. Against Brentford he started Bissouma. The common factor is the instruction: receive between the lines, combine, continue. The difference is the second runner. With Bentancur, the second runner is the right back. With Bissouma, the second runner is the left back. The winger stays as the wall. This is small but it matters. De Zerbi is not married to a single shape. He is married to a single idea, and the idea is that the eight must always have a third-man option on either shoulder before he receives.
For coaches reading this on a Level 3 or Level 4 course, the practical takeaway is about session design. The third-man run cannot be coached as a passing drill. It has to be coached as a pressing drill from the other team's perspective. Set up two attackers against one defender. Add a third attacker arriving late. Then add a second defender. The drill is now 3v2 with the constraint that one attacker must always be a third-man runner. The attackers learn to time the run, not just to make it, and they learn to scan before the pass rather than after. UEFA's UEFA Pro Licence block on attacking principles covers the idea, but the constraint-based version is what I use on the field, and the scan-before-receive cue is what most youth sessions leave out.
The numbers behind the pattern
Spurs have played eight Premier League matches under De Zerbi so far in 2026-27. In the first four matches the team averaged 1.2 third-man runs per game in the middle third, based on my own notes from video review. In the last four matches that figure is 4.6, with the highest single count coming in the Brentford game where I logged seven clear examples before the hour mark. The increase is not a coincidence with the run of three games in eight days that closed September. It is a product of repetition in training and of the players beginning to trust the pattern under fatigue.
The expected goals figure tells a similar story. According to the public FBref data, Spurs' xG from open play through the first eight matches is 14.3, up from 11.8 at the same point last season. The shot-creating actions that originate from a third-man combination are 22 per cent of the total, the highest share in the division and three points clear of the next nearest side. FBref publishes the breakdown by team and the Spurs share is striking, particularly when set against the league average of around eleven per cent.
What the numbers do not show is the failure mode. In the second half against Brentford, Spurs stopped using the pattern. They reverted to long diagonals. Brentford scored twice from the resulting transitions, both from the same channel on the right side where Porro had been high. The same thing happened in the Europa League game after the hour mark, when Sarr replaced Bentancur and the structure briefly broke. The third-man run is energy-intensive. When the eight tires, the pattern collapses. This is the next thing De Zerbi must solve, and it points towards a second eight in the squad who can rotate the role without dropping the quality of the combinations.
What the academy can take from the first team
Our Under-18s tried the pattern in the FA Youth Cup third round last week. The boys picked it up in one session, because they watch the first team every day on the analysis screen before training. The opposition, a category two academy, did not know how to defend it, and their coach admitted afterwards that the third-man run was the difference between the sides. We won 4-0 and three of the goals came from third-man combinations, with the fourth coming from a second-phase rebound off a saved cross.
For coaches working in India, the lesson is different. The pattern needs a specific type of eight and a specific type of full back, and it also needs a winger who is comfortable acting as the wall rather than as the finisher. If your number eight cannot receive on the half turn, the pattern will not work. If your full back cannot time an underlap, the pattern will not work. The drill I described above, 3v2 with a constraint, is the way to find out quickly, and the scan-before-receive cue is the way to find out even more quickly whether the player profile is right for the role.
What is still missing
The third-man run solves the build-up. It does not solve the defensive transition. Spurs still concede the first transition, as I wrote in my previous piece on the October run, and the volume of those concessions has not dropped even as the attacking pattern has improved. The two problems are linked. When the third-man run breaks down, the team is caught high. De Zerbi has so far accepted this trade-off, and his post-match comments after Brentford suggested he sees the goals conceded as a price worth paying for the control the pattern gives in the middle third.
For now, the pattern is the most interesting thing at Spurs since the Ange Postecoglou era. It is a deliberate, repeatable, coachable idea, and it gives the academy a clear template to mirror in the youth teams. That is enough to be excited about. The next test is Manchester City at home on 18 October. If the third-man run works against Guardiola's press, we will know it is real, and if it does not, we will know that the ceiling for this group is lower than the opening eight matches have suggested.