Tottenham Have Gone All in on Roberto De Zerbi – Are They Risking Their Long-Term Future?

Tottenham are splashing the cash in the transfer market this summer as they look to back manager Roberto De Zerbi. Will it work, or are they taking too big a risk?

Tottenham went early and they went in two-footed.

They have attacked this summer’s transfer window with a determination and force that reflects their desire to build on a strong end to last season. There appears to be a complete commitment to giving Roberto De Zerbi the tools he believes are necessary to play football his way.

It’s a pretty unusual approach for the club, who have so often in the past dawdled in the transfer market, seemingly always chasing the best possible deal.

Doing so has hurt them over the years, not least last summer when they missed out on Morgan Gibbs-White and Eberechi Eze having reportedly been in a strong position to sign both.

They ended up signing Xavi Simons, who is clearly a very good player, but he was always a back-up option as the club wanted a Premier League-ready creator, and he naturally took a little while to adapt to life in a new country.

This year, they didn’t want to make the same mistake. First-choice targets were identified quickly and signed with ruthless efficiency, at times at great expense.

By 6 July the signings of Jan Paul van Hecke, Martin Dúbravka, Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi, Mateus Fernandes and Sandro Tonali had all been announced.

Each joined from a club who were in the Premier League last season, and each came with plenty of recent experience in the top flight. Van Hecke, Fernandes and Tonali, meanwhile, cost a combined total of £237 million. The other three came on free transfers, but each will have commanded not-insignificant wages.

These signings also signalled a shift in transfer strategy for Tottenham. While there had been some first-team-ready signings in recent years, a lot of time and money had been spent on recruiting promising youngsters who the club felt they could develop into the world-class players they needed.

Since summer 2024, Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall, Wilson Odobert, Mathys Tel, Kota Takai, Luka Vuskovic and Souza have all been signed when aged 20 or below for at least £5m (Takai) and at most £40m (Gray). Only Odobert had any previous Premier League experience (29 appearances for Burnley in 2023-24). There was a clear focus on planning for the future.

Spurs didn’t put all of their eggs in that basket, also spending big on first-team-ready players like then-club-record signing Dominic Solanke, Mohammed Kudus and Simons. However, those were outweighed by signings that had more than half an eye on the future.

This summer, though, only Fernandes was signed aged under 22 and, having played 72 of a possible 76 Premier League games for Southampton and West Ham over the past two seasons, is very much ready to go straight into the first team. The rest of Spurs’ other five signings are at least 26 years old.

In many ways it’s admirable. The decision has been made to give De Zerbi the signings he thinks are needed to prevent any possibility of another flirtation with relegation. After the Italian steered the club to safety without any new signings, an injury-ravaged squad and an inadequate set of available players, there was good reason to back him. And now, there is genuine excitement among the fanbase about what will follow this summer’s overhaul.

No secret has been made of how much De Zerbi had to adapt the possession-focused tactics he usually embraces in order to get quick results to drag Spurs out of trouble. From when he took over until the end of the season, only two teams had fewer sequences of 10+ passes ending in a shot or a touch in the opposition’s box than Spurs’ 1.3 per game. In his final season at Brighton in 2023-24, only Manchester City (7.7 per game) and Arsenal (5.6) averaged more such sequences than his team (4.4).

The aim this season will be to get Tottenham playing a little more like De Zerbi’s hugely impressive Brighton sides. That will mean more patient build-up play and slower attacks.

There’s no question changes were needed at Spurs. Thomas Frank had put together a team who seemingly couldn’t progress the ball through the centre of the pitch. In fact, “sideways or backwards, everywhere we go” was self-deprecatingly sung by the Spurs fans last season. They ranked 15th in the Premier League last term for progressive passes (19.0 per game), where a progressive pass is defined as a completed open-play pass in the attacking two-thirds of the pitch that moves the ball at least 25% closer to the goal.

That is surely the main reason De Zerbi, who reportedly demanded a greater say in transfers than Spurs had previously planned for him, has gone so hard on upgrading Spurs in central midfield and central defence.

In Senesi, Spurs now have the player who made the most progressive passes in the Premier League last season (233, or 6.3 per 90). Van Hecke ranked third (191, 5.4 per 90).

Meanwhile, Van Hecke topped the league for line-breaking passes (459). Senesi was second (420). These also weren’t only passes into a midfielder beyond the opposition’s attacking line, either. Senesi (72) and Van Hecke (51) topped the league for passes that broke two lines of the opposition’s structure, while Senesi was top for passes that broke three lines (eight).

In Fernandes, De Zerbi now has a press-resistant midfielder who demands the ball to feet in tight spaces, looks to play forward whenever possible and is effective at doing so despite the close attentions of opponents.

He completed 87.5% of his passes in Premier League games last season, and that rate only dropped marginally – to 86.5% – when under ‘high’ pressure (an opponent within two metres of him). Of the 156 players to play 2,000 minutes in the Premier League last season, only 13 had a better pass success rate while under high pressure than Fernandes.

Only one of them – Wolves’ André – also played for a team who finished lower than 11th, while five others were central defenders, who are always likelier to have a simple passing option (such as back to the goalkeeper). And among the 94 non-defenders to play at least 2,000 Premier League minutes last season, Fernandes ranked 15th for line-breaking passes per 90 with 6.5. This is all despite the fact he was playing for the team who had the lowest average possession in the division (42.3%).

Tonali brings physicality and durability to a midfield that has lost plenty of it after opting against making João Palhinha’s loan permanent. Tonali is also a ball-winner, and while not as effective as Palhinha in that department, he provides far more in the way of technical ability on the ball.

Of the 156 players to play 2,000+ minutes in the Premier League last season, Tonali made the top 20 for progressive passes per 90, with 3.3. Of Tottenham midfielders, Conor Gallagher came closest to matching Tonali here, and he averaged just 2.1 per 90 over far fewer minutes.

Robertson, meanwhile, adds depth, experience and a winning mentality to a youthful squad. His best years may be behind him but, at 32, he still has plenty to offer, even if he only plays a portion of games, as he did for the last few seasons at Liverpool.

However, while Spurs look stronger and can be optimistic about these players having settled ahead of the new season as they were signed so early, they have made no changes in attack, where they were woeful last term. Their total of 48 goals in 2025-26 was their lowest in any Premier League season since 2008-09. They had scored at least 61 goals in each of the previous 10 seasons.

Injuries played their part here, but that is precisely the issue that needs addressing. Among Spurs’ attacking midfielders and forwards, each of Odobert, Kudus, Simons, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevki is either out with a serious injury or recovering from one. That leaves Solanke, Richarlison and Tel as the only fully-fit options, and as Spurs know all too well, Solanke and Richarlison can hardly be relied upon to be available. Other options are needed.

Given how De Zerbi has approached recruiting in positions where he had other options – albeit ones he wanted to upgrade – one can only assume he wants at least two, if not three, additions in attack. And given how much money has been spent elsewhere, assuming they don’t have any more free transfers up their sleeve – players we missed in the article below – they’ll be splashing more cash before long.

It’s understandable that Spurs have struggled to replace the goals of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, and it will be interesting to see if they go big in the transfer market for a new centre-forward given they have spent £125m on Solanke and Richarlison in the last few years.

The number-nine market isn’t exactly filled with high-quality, attainable, Premier League-ready options, though, and De Zerbi doesn’t appear especially keen on the idea of developing young players.

Twenty-one-year-old academy product Will Lankshear, whom some had high hopes for and maybe even foresaw him getting some game time this season, was this week sold to Middlesbrough for a fee that could rise to £20m. It would be very expensive to bring someone in who could lead the line straight away.

Out wide, Kudus is a very good option on the right, but an alternative is needed. On the other flank, both Tel and Odobert have underwhelmed and still have a lot of developing to do. Neither is a consistent threat at Premier League level.

Reports suggest Spurs are pursuing deals for Marcus Rashford from Manchester United and Savinho from City. Both are out of favour at their current clubs, but neither would come cheap. While there’s little indication those deals are at all close right now, they are a further indication of how much the club is backing De Zerbi.

It’s an exciting time. Spurs fans have something to believe in, which couldn’t be said of anything Frank built. However, the commitment to doing whatever and buying whomever De Zerbi wants comes with risks.

He is a volatile manager. Things have blown up for him in some way just about wherever he has gone. Whether or not his volatility is always to blame in each individual case, it is telling that he failed to complete two full seasons at six of his previous eight clubs, and at the other two he lasted no longer than three seasons.

He might change that at Tottenham and stick around for the long term. But he also may only be there for another two years, after which Tottenham will have a lot of expensive, highly-paid players on their books who were bought with De Zerbi’s wishes in mind.

They have also already sold Vuskovic to Brighton this summer, and reports suggest Bergvall could be on his way out, too. There are also rumours De Zerbi is not a great admirer of Gray – a fan favourite at Tottenham – and that is backed up by how little he featured at the end of last season. Pape Sarr is another who could be sold.

There has been a huge and dramatic shift from the focus on youth to an aim to get immediate results. It might work, but it’s a big risk.

However, so too was hiring De Zerbi in the first place. So far, he has done everything the club had hoped he would, so it’s worth them giving him the chance to keep on improving results. If things start to go wrong, though, this will be an expensive mistake.

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