Andy Robertson says Tottenham Hotspur are "still guilty of carrying that weight of last season on our shoulders" as the club searches for its footing under Roberto De Zerbi.
The 32-year-old joined Spurs on a free transfer in the summer after nine years at Liverpool, where he won every major trophy available in club football. He was one of ten new arrivals at the club during a summer of major turnover that has yet to translate into results on the pitch.
Tottenham sit bottom of the Premier League table after five games, still without a win in the competition. They also went out of the Carabao Cup in the third round, beaten 3-1 at Anfield, where Robertson received a warm reception on his return to his old home.
"We're Still Carrying It"
Speaking to Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Ian Wright, Jamie Carragher and Jill Scott on the latest episode of 'Stick to Football' on Disney+, via football.london, Robertson explained why he thinks Spurs are still finding it hard to move on from last season.
"They're now starting this journey. They've had a couple of really tough seasons in terms of finishes in the league. They've had to go into the market in terms of they've spent a bit of money, but I do believe Tottenham are now starting a journey. Now, I don't know how far that journey can go, nobody does, but the determination in that group is, like, you can see last season hurt them a lot. And maybe we're still guilty of carrying that weight of last season on our shoulders," he said.
"That's the message of the manager, first and foremost. And also that kind of falls on me, the new players, of we need to forget. We need to now try and get Tottenham back to where we believe they belong. And the fans are still carrying it as well, and you don't blame them. They've been through such a tough time and things like that."
Robertson pointed to specific moments as evidence of the mentality issue he's describing. "You just see certain moments, like the Liverpool game, we played so well there in moments, and then you get a goal against you, and it's like (heads down). And then we go back to 2-1, and all of a sudden it's chests out, and everyone's wanting the ball, and it's like, we need that all the time even if you go 1-0 down, or it's 0-0 late on," he said. "When we played Everton, we dominated pretty much the whole game, but we started getting panicked near the end, and we started rushing things."
New Faces, Old Baggage
With ten new signings arriving over the summer, Robertson believes it falls to the experienced newcomers to help carry the club through this period.
"That's what the manager wants from probably all these new signings, really. I mean, it's quite rare that you make 10 new signings. We've had a lot of changes this summer, but he wants all of us to be the ones that help drive us on, because he thinks that we don't have the baggage of finishing 17th in two seasons and he's right. So it's like, bit by bit, we're getting better and better," he said.
He added some perspective on recent results: "I think the last couple of weeks have been positive, without getting positive results. The Forest draw was a fair result. I think we should have beat Everton, and we could be sitting here on more points. But Newcastle, for 60 minutes, it was an even game. The goal, like I'm talking about, we conceded and everyone, the whole stadium [you feel it]. I think we need the first win, and once we get the first win, I think we'll be really good this season."
How the Move Came Together
Tottenham first tried to sign Robertson back in January, but he had no intention of leaving Liverpool mid-season. "I'd say probably January time [I knew my time at Liverpool was ending]. I nearly left in January but I didn't want to leave but Tottenham came in for me. Obviously, they were bang in trouble at that point. It was never in my plan to leave in January. I had six months left, and I had the World Cup and things like that, so I was more that I need to just look to that," he explained. "But in January time, it started becoming real that I was going to leave, and that's when I came to peace with it, really."
Once he decided to move on, Spurs became his clear preference, provided they avoided relegation. "It was always Tottenham, as long as they stayed up! At that point, I didn't quite want to go to the Championship. So that was the thing, I ended up then getting invested in Tottenham, I was like watching them," he said. "Especially when De Zerbi came in, I was fully confident. But yeah, as long as they stayed up, it was always going to be Tottenham. They showed their interest first, and they really wanted me, and I was happy with how much they wanted me."
Direct conversations with De Zerbi over video calls during the summer convinced Robertson that Spurs were the right move. "He's super ambitious, you can tell that as a manager. He wants to be able to win trophies, he wants to be competing and things like that, and he knows it will take time, but he also knows that we need to start showing it sooner rather than later," he said.
"He believes in the squad, and I believe in the squad. If you look at our squad, even when I'm looking at the team we played against Liverpool in the cup, and then you look at the bench, in every position you've got so much quality, and you've got so many good players, it's just we all need to show it as one, instead of maybe a bit of individual quality or whatever. I think we just need a little bit of luck, and we need a little bit more of forgetting about the past and how we need to move forward. I do think as the season goes and goes and goes, we'll get better and better."
