Tottenham Faces Challenge Without Key Full-Backs

Tottenham fans arrived at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium expecting a response to last weekend’s stalemate at Nottingham Forest. Instead, the first jolt of the afternoon came before a ball had even been kicked.

No Pedro Porro. No Destiny Udogie. Not on the bench. Not in the squad.

For a side built so heavily on its full-backs, it was a gut punch.

De Zerbi’s calculated gamble

The omissions weren’t a mystery to Roberto De Zerbi. He had flagged the danger 24 hours earlier, sounding more like a physio than a head coach as he weighed risk against reward.

"Porro felt a small muscular problem, we have to see tomorrow if he’s available or not but in this moment I don’t want to take any risks. The same [with] Udogie," he said on Friday.

The decision was made. No gamble. Not in August. Not with a long, unforgiving season ahead.

De Zerbi pointed directly at Porro’s workload. The Spaniard’s World Cup run has left a lingering mark, the kind of hidden fatigue that doesn’t always show up in training but bites when the fixtures stack up.

"Porro and Udogie are similar players because one, Pedro played a World Cup, a long World Cup and we already knew after the World Cup it could be a difficult management for him," De Zerbi explained.

The warning signs had been there. Tottenham chose to listen.

Managing Udogie’s fragile rhythm

If Porro’s situation is about accumulated miles, Udogie’s is about scar tissue.

Last season in North London was repeatedly interrupted for the Italian. Just when he found rhythm, another setback dragged him back to the treatment room. Tottenham cannot afford a repeat.

"For Udogie, last season [he] suffered many injuries, he played 60 minutes in Nottingham and we have to manage also Destiny in the best way we can," De Zerbi added.

Sixty minutes at the City Ground was enough. Enough to remind everyone what he offers. Enough to remind the medical staff what they could lose by pushing too hard, too soon.

So Everton at home arrived without either of De Zerbi’s first-choice full-backs. A tactical plan built on aggressive, high-energy wide defenders suddenly had to be redrawn.

Fernandes backs the project

The backdrop to all this is a Tottenham side still searching for a first win of the campaign, still trying to knit together a new core under De Zerbi.

Matheus Fernandes, the marquee £85m summer signing from West Ham, isn’t flinching.

"I believe that I can be a much better player than I was last season," the Portuguese international said, leaning into the scale of the squad around him rather than shying away from it.

"If you look at the squad, it's a big team with big players, important players, players with experience, players with a lot of quality. So, when you play with better players, I think you play better. So, I believe that I can be much better."

He turned down serious interest from Manchester United to join this project, drawn by De Zerbi’s intensity and the promise of a side built to dominate the ball. The early results may not scream progress, but Fernandes is betting on the long game.

Gray and Robertson step into the void

On the day, though, belief had to be matched by solutions.

With Porro and Udogie out, the responsibility fell on two very different profiles: Archie Gray and Andy Robertson.

Gray, the teenager who arrived from Leeds United amid heavy expectation, has already been shuffled across multiple roles. Midfield, full-back, hybrid positions between the lines – he has seen them all. Everton’s wingers offered a different sort of test: direct, physical, relentless.

This wasn’t a developmental cameo. It was a Premier League examination of his defensive instincts and composure under pressure.

On the opposite flank, Robertson brought something else entirely. Experience. Muscle memory. Years of high-stakes football at the top of the division.

He was asked to mimic Udogie’s job – the inverted steps into midfield, the surging overlaps, the constant presence in the final third. It is a demanding role even for a player in his prime, let alone one adjusting to a new system and new teammates.

The tactical blueprint didn’t change. The personnel did. That’s the tightrope De Zerbi has chosen to walk: a system so defined that any absence feels seismic, yet a squad now deep enough that he expects the standard to hold.

Tottenham’s season will not be decided by one afternoon without Porro and Udogie. But if these “minor muscular problems” become a theme rather than a footnote, the story of their campaign could quickly shift from bold ambition to a battle with the limits of their own bodies.