Antonin Kinsky is back for Tottenham and ready for redemption as Roberto De Zerbi’s distributor

By Elias Burke

Tottenham Hotspur’s relegation-threatened season has handed Antonin Kinsky an unexpected lifeline. With first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario ruled out after hernia surgery, the 23-year-old Czech will start Sunday’s crucial trip to Sunderland, armed with a mandate from new head coach Roberto De Zerbi: play bold, play brave, and forget Madrid.

The memories of that February night at the Estadio Metropolitano still sting. Two Kinsky errors inside 17 minutes helped Atletico Madrid to a 5-2 first-leg romp, prompting then-manager Igor Tudor to hook the goalkeeper before the teams had even settled. The public humiliation—televised trudge down the tunnel, pundits queuing to condemn—threatened to define a £12.5 million career barely eight games old.

Yet goalkeepers, like elite strikers, survive on selective amnesia. Manuel Neuer, 40, is still sweeping and spraying despite a highlight reel of mishaps; Thibaut Courtois and Alisson traded dreadful passes in the same 2022-23 Champions League tie and emerged reputation-intact. Karius, conversely, never recovered from Kiev 2018. De Zerbi is betting his new No. 1 belongs in the first category.

“I didn’t speak with him yet because I think he doesn’t need to speak too much,” the Italian said on Friday. “I have confidence. His qualities are enough to play at Tottenham. He has to stay calm and confident. He is playing at Tottenham, so he has to be stronger than the mistakes and to move on.”

De Zerbi’s conviction is not hollow. At Brighton he demoted Robert Sanchez for Jason Steele, an untested Premier League journeyman, because Steele’s passing profile better fit the manager’s 11-man attacking schema. Even after signing Bart Verbruggen, Steele continued to share duties while the Dutchman was groomed for the ball-playing demands De Zerbi considers non-negotiable.

Those demands could suit Kinsky perfectly. Sporting director Johan Lange sanctioned the January 2025 move from Slavia Prague after data flagged the keeper’s comfort receiving under pressure and his range of distribution. Clips from last season’s Carabao Cup semi-final against Liverpool show Kinsky shaping to invite Darwin Nunez’s press before arcing a disguised pass to his full-back; another sequence sees him drop a 40-yard dime onto Son Heung-min’s chest, millimetres from springing a breakaway.

For better or worse, that is the De Zerbi playbook: risk invited, reward coveted. Tottenham sit in the bottom three after West Ham’s Friday-night demolition of Wolves; survival may hinge on whether a goalkeeper once yanked after 17 minutes can now provide the launchpad for a revived attack.

Vicario, who underwent surgery at the start of the international break, is targeting a return against Brighton next weekend. Between now and then, Kinsky has 90 minutes—or perhaps 180 if the fixtures align—to ensure the Madrid nightmare becomes a footnote rather than the epitaph of his Tottenham story.

De Zerbi, the Premier League’s last true ideologue, believes all 11 players must think like distributors. On Sunday, his most scrutinised pupil gets the chance to prove he can be exactly that.