Tottenham Hotspur’s summer transfer spending spree was supposed to be transformational, but on first viewing, many of the same deficiencies from previous seasons clearly remain. It would obviously be premature to conduct a full post-mortem of Spurs’ summer transfer business, but the early dysfunction of this new-look side needs addressing quickly.
Core to this worry is the sputtering midfield, led by club-record signing Sandro Tonali – whose deal, worth upwards of £100m, already looks like one of the most questionable signings of the summer league-wide. This isn’t to suggest that Tonali is a bad player – in fact, spells for Italy and Newcastle would suggest quite the opposite – but the question is whether Spurs have signed the right type of midfielder.
Sandro Tonali isn’t a £100m midfielder because he scores goals or racks up assists. His real value is in making the players around him function better. Five games into his Spurs career, that is precisely what we haven’t seen enough of.
So what sort of player is Tonali? To dismiss the Italian as a defensive midfielder undersells him; he’s essentially a playmaking No.6 with the athleticism of a box-to-box midfielder. At Newcastle, he evolved into a deeper midfielder, where he was able to dictate tempo and defend transitions while covering enormous amounts of ground. He is a structural rather than spectacular piece, and a number of Newcastle fans would point to his ability to unlock Bruno Guimarães as a more advanced attacking option in Eddie Howe’s 4-3-3. He is the player who is supposed to make everyone else better, the enabler of a cohesive midfield system.
Sandro Tonali in action during international duty for Italy (Photo by Federico Proietti/DPPI/Icon Sportswire)
The obvious point would be that Spurs need the right creative pieces alongside him to complement Tonali – and clearly the injuries to Xavi Simons, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski have hardly helped in finding this balance. What is strange, though, is Roberto De Zerbi’s branding of Tonali as a “complete midfielder”, suggesting he wasn’t trying to sign an industrious deep-lying ball-winner, but something a bit more. Most people who have watched Tonali would struggle to label him as “complete”, so maybe this is spin or wishful thinking from De Zerbi.
Clearly, Spurs have struggled to find a settled system, let alone consistent personnel, so far; and this instability isn’t the best base from which Tonali is likely to thrive. Inauspicious starts for the likes of Mateus Fernandes and Conor Gallagher this season have compounded the midfield issues at Spurs.
It is also very difficult to value a midfielder who doesn’t score or assist often. If Spurs had paid £100m for a striker, you’d expect goals. If they paid £100m for a winger, you’d expect goals and assists. But how do you truly measure Tonali?
How much better does Spurs’ build-up look? Can they control possession? Can they recover the ball? Can he protect the defence?
That means his success is harder to measure individually, and he can actually have a decent individual performance while Spurs remain a dysfunctional team. In fact, for a lot of Spurs fans, his performances have been middling to date, and far from the insipid contributions of some of his teammates.
But the £100m fee does change the standard.
Clearly, supporters don’t pay directly, and Spurs have done the opposite when it comes to expenditure historically – but the price does still matter.
Spurs didn’t buy a promising 21-year-old. They bought a 26-year-old midfielder at his supposed peak for a club-record fee. So Spurs weren’t buying potential. They were buying immediate influence. And after five games, that influence hasn’t been obvious enough.
Spurs don’t yet have a team, or potentially even a manager, that knows how to use Tonali effectively. In a coherent midfield structure, as was often the case during his time at Newcastle, his qualities become obvious. If he’s constantly being asked to compensate for poor positioning, disconnected attackers and inconsistent pressing, then these qualities become much harder to see.
Rodrigo Bentancur has been a rare bright spot for Spurs this season, but his continued inclusion has created genuine role confusion in the midfield. Bentancur, Tonali and Fernandes are not the same midfielders, but they do have overlapping traits that can easily erode any sense of identity in the middle of the park. The return of James Maddison to full fitness could have a huge impact on this, forcing De Zerbi to again play Fernandes alongside Tonali at the base of his midfield – with the main final-third output and connection coming through Maddison.
Spurs didn’t spend £100m on Sandro Tonali for spectacular numbers. They spent it because they believed he could give their midfield control, progression and authority. Five games isn’t enough to decide whether that investment has failed. But it is enough to ask whether Spurs have built the team around the qualities they spent £100m to acquire.
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