De Zerbi urges Savio to add more goals to his game after dream Spurs debut

Roberto De Zerbi believes Savio can be "one of the best wingers" in the Premier League, but only if the new Tottenham signing adds more goals to his game.

Savio made his debut for Spurs in Wednesday's 5-1 thrashing of Charlton Athletic in the EFL Cup, and the Brazilian wasted little time in making an impact for his new team. 

The hosts were already leading 3-0 thanks to goals from Mikey Moore, Dominic Solanke and Kevin Danso before Savio was introduced into the action in the 71st minute. 

And just 11 minutes into his debut, Savio cut inside from the right-hand side before rifling an effort past Charlton goalkeeper Tiernan Brooks and into the bottom-right corner. 

Savio thought he had a debut double when his goal-bound strike trickled into the net, but replays showed that his attempt deflected off Ben Davies before nestling into the net. 

During his time at Manchester City, Savio managed just 20 goal involvements (seven goals, 13 assists) in 84 appearances across all competitions before completing his £85m switch to north London on Tuesday. 

And De Zerbi was thrilled by the start Savio made to his Spurs career, but insisted that he wants the 22-year-old to hit double figures for goals this season. 

"Yes, it was a perfect day for him," De Zerbi said. "I think his biggest step and biggest improvement is to increase the number of goals.

"With his qualities, he is one of the best wingers. But the best wingers score many goals. I spoke with him yesterday, two days ago.

"We put the goal on 10 to 12 goals because we need those goals from the wingers. Last season, I think we suffered too much.

"Also, because the number of goals were not enough to compete for nothing more than that position."

Spurs have now won seven of their last eight EFL Cup home matches, with the only defeat during this period coming against Chelsea in the semi-final of the 2021-22 edition.

De Zerbi's side were deserving of their win, too. They finished with an expected goals (xG) total of 1.09 from their 20 shots to Charlton's 0.36 from their six attempts.

And their reward is a clash against Liverpool in the third round, the same opposition that beat them 4-1 on aggregate in the semi-finals of the competition in 2024-25. 

"Great. It's a great game," De Zerbi said of Tottenham's third-round tie. "If we want to win the competition, we want to win the games and sometimes in this competition it can happen to play already in the beginning against big, big teams.

"It's a great challenge for the players, for me, for the club, and we have to arrive at that game ready to play in our style and ready to play in our personality."

For Charlton, they were dumped out of the EFL Cup early once again. They have failed to go beyond the second round since 2022-23, when they reached the quarter-finals.

The Addicks came into the clash with confidence, having won both their Championship matches so far this season, including a 2-1 triumph away to West Ham last weekend. 

Nathan Jones made 10 changes to the side that emerged victorious at the London Stadium, with the average age of Charlton's side being 24.3. 

And the Charlton boss admitted his team could not keep up with the quality in Spurs' ranks, while also being left to rue two injuries sustained by Collins Sichenje and Billy Koumetio early in the first half.

"Premier League sides are on another level," Jones conceded. "You can see the changes they make, and then they're bringing on a World Cup winner, and an £80m player.

"We can't compete with that. It's been a disastrous night with the injuries."