De Zerbi Has Landed - With Excess Baggage
Is Roberto De Zerbi a tactical genius or the world’s most expensive flight risk? This week, we dive into the Italian’s arrival at N17 — bringing high-energy Rondos, a fiery temperament and a salary that laughs in the face of the club's £831m
With only seven games to save the season, we ask: will he stay if we go down, or will he flounce out the moment he spots a carton of UHT milk in the canteen?
Also in this episode:
Financial Fair Play-ish: Digging through the £94.7m loss—where did that "£100m war chest" go?
The Mikey Moore Mystery: Why was the club quieter than a library about his health issues?
Academy Watch: Are our loanees "desperately average" or just resting?
The Art of the Text: Kev’s guide to the "Calculated Mock"—when exactly is it safe to ruin a friend’s weekend?
Plus, we induct the "USA-isation" of football and the phrase "I was today years old" into Room 101.
Featuring the legendary Julie Welch, the eternally miserable-yet-optimistic Kev Acott, and actor and wannabe social media star, Lee Brown
COYS.
Host
Simon is a former solicitor who saw the light and got the hell out of law before it broke him. He started a career as a stand-up comedian and impressionist in 1993, becoming a regular at The Comedy Store, Jongleurs and all major - and a few minor - comedy clubs around the UK and abroad. He has appeared on countless BBC Radio shows including Dead Ringers, Week Ending, Loose Ends and The Game's Up (lead impressionist) and also had his own Radio 4 sketch comedy show, Fordham & Lipson. His TV appearances have included Celebrity Squares, The Stand Up Show and Talking Telephone Numbers.
He created and hosted the popular Making An Impression podcast, interviewing top impressionists from the UK, Ireland and the USA including Rory Bremner, Jon Culshaw, Alistaie McGowan, Al Foran, Christina Bianco and Jim Meskimen. He was also the creator and host of The VARside Spurs podcast, before setting up Nice One Cyril in August 2025, which he continues to host.
Simon works as a professional voiceover artist.
Julie Welch is a legendary sports journalist, author and screenwriter who in 1973 became Fleet Street's first female football reporter. As a screenwriter she writes both screenplays and scripts for television, while as an author she has written both fiction and non-fiction. Some of her most notable works include the 1983 made-for-television film Those Glory Glory Days, which was inspired by her childhood love of football, and the books The Fleet Street Girls, the story of her experiences as a football reporter, Too Marvellous For Words, which describes her education at an all-girl boarding school, Felixstowe College, in the 1960s, the best-selling The Biography of Tottenham Hotspurand The Ghost of White Hart Lane (with Rob White).
Julie joins us every week on Nice One Cyril
Lee Brown is a professional actor known mostly for film and television. He trained at the prestigious Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, graduating in 1996 with one of the institution's acting awards. After several years as an actor, Lee began teaching Drama and Theatre Studies, directing many shows and guiding students into the industry. In recent years, Lee has returned to the acting profession and can be seen in a variety of short films and two feature films released in 2025. He is slated to film several new feature films in 2026.
Lee has appeared with actors such as Johnny Lee Miller, Jonathan Pryce, Patsy Kensit, Julian Glover, James Wilby, Dougray Scott, Julian Fellows, James McAvoy, Lorna Heilbron, Nicholas Clay, Helen Lederer. Check out his Instagram account @leebrownactor or Spotlight profile for more information.
Kev Acott is a grumpy, eternally optimistic writer, photographer, health inspector, university lecturer and therapist who wishes he didn’t have to support Tottenham and is haunted by the fact they haven’t won the league in his lifetime. His father was a Charlton fan who made the twin mistakes of moving to Enfield and not insisting his son follow his lead in supporting a less-traumatising team.
He is a music reviewer and biographer, has had several short stories, articles and poems published and is currently working on a second novel, in which key scenes include a drunken fight at the 1921 FA Cup Final and Jayne Mansfield’s visit to White Hart Lane in 1959. His favourite all-time player is Graham Roberts.
