De Zerbi's Overhaul at Tottenham: New Midfield Signings
Roberto De Zerbi did not arrive at Tottenham to tinker. He came to rip things up and start again, and the scale of this summer’s overhaul shows he has wasted no time.
The defence went first. Marcos Senesi, Andy Robertson and Martin Dubravka walked through the door on free transfers from AFC Bournemouth, Liverpool and Burnley, while Jan Paul van Hecke arrived from Brighton & Hove Albion to reshape the back line. That alone would have signalled a new era.
Now the surgery has reached the heart of the team.
Spurs have made their fifth and sixth signings of the window by landing two heavyweight central midfielders: Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United and Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United. In one bold move, De Zerbi has effectively redrawn the centre of his 4-2-3-1.
This is not just about numbers. It is about identity.
De Zerbi’s blueprint returns
De Zerbi used his first seven Premier League matches in charge simply to keep Spurs clear of relegation trouble, shelving the full tactical revolution to deal with the immediate crisis. Survival first, ideology later.
Now the ideology is coming.
His work at Brighton & Hove Albion and Marseille tells the story. De Zerbi wants a side that can dominate the ball, hunt it back with ferocity and then rip through the pitch with sudden, vertical surges. His football lives on the edge: high pressing, high risk, high reward.
The defining feature is his trademark “press-baiting”. Centre-backs and midfielders invite pressure, passing out from the back in rehearsed patterns, luring opponents forward. Then, with one sharp pass or a disguised touch, they spin out of the trap and explode upfield, almost like a counter-attacking team despite starting with the ball.
It is a style that drags Spurs away from the more measured Thomas Frank era and back towards the bold front-foot approach seen under Ange Postecoglou. Opta data backs that up: De Zerbi’s peak Brighton side in 2022/23 and Postecoglou’s 2023/24 Spurs team posted similar numbers for direct speed upfield and passes per sequence. Both could move the ball quickly towards goal, but were equally comfortable stitching together patient passing moves.
To play that way, the central midfielders cannot be passengers. They must be relentless without the ball and ruthless with it. They need the legs and aggression to press, the composure to take the ball under pressure in tight spaces, and the vision to punch vertical passes through the lines when the tempo suddenly shifts.
At Brighton, Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo provided that platform and later earned moves to Liverpool and Chelsea. In north London, Fernandes and Tonali are being asked to echo that influence.
Why Tonali and Fernandes fit De Zerbi-ball
Set Tonali and Fernandes against Spurs’ most-used central midfielders from 2025/26 and the rationale becomes clear.
De Zerbi’s system lives on pressing. Conor Gallagher’s late-season importance as an attacking midfielder stemmed from his ability to hound opponents and trigger turnovers high up the pitch. The numbers show Tonali and Fernandes will only amplify that intensity.
Across the Premier League in 2025/26, players who sit in the top-right of the high-turnovers-versus-ball-recoveries graph are the ones who excel at winning possession in open play within 40 metres of the opposition goal and scooping up loose balls. Tonali and Fernandes operate firmly in that zone, indicating they can drive the aggressive pressing De Zerbi demands from his double pivot.
On the ball, the pattern is just as striking. Another league-wide comparison, this time plotting final-third entries against pass accuracy, pushes both new signings towards the elite quadrant. They complete more passes and more final-third entries than most midfielders in the division, and crucially outstrip Spurs’ regular options from last season. That blend of security in possession and vertical intent is exactly what De Zerbi’s style feeds on.
The statistical gap runs deeper. Per 90 minutes, Tonali and Fernandes not only improve Spurs’ existing choices, they also sit in similar territory to Mac Allister and Caicedo in Brighton’s 2022/23 peak.
- Tonali: 13.24 final-third passes completed, 16.81 forward passes, 84.8% open-play pass accuracy, 0.53 possessions won in the final third.
- Fernandes: 10.30 final-third passes, 12.65 forward passes, 87.8% accuracy, 0.51 possessions won in the final third.
Compare that with Spurs’ 2025/26 midfielders:
- Pape Matar Sarr: 9.96 final-third passes, 10.55 forward passes, 84.4% accuracy, 0.32 possessions won in the final third.
- Gray: 6.57, 10.77, 82.7%, 0.12.
- Joao Palhinha: 5.53, 12.86, 81.8%, 0.20.
- Rodrigo Bentancur: 7.56, 11.70, 85.6%, 0.33.
And then the Brighton benchmark:
- Mac Allister (2022/23): 14.16 final-third passes, 14.16 forward passes, 87.0% accuracy, 0.90 possessions won in the final third.
- Caicedo (2022/23): 14.22, 15.62, 88.7%, 0.57.
Tonali and Fernandes are not statistical clones of that Brighton pair, but they live in the same neighbourhood. For De Zerbi, that matters.
Roles in the new Spurs engine room
The profiles of the two signings complement each other.
Fernandes is the creative spark. From deep or from the inside channels, he can hit long, raking diagonals, slip clever through-balls or carry the ball past the first line with line-breaking dribbles. His passing range allows him to flip the rhythm of a move in an instant.
He resembles a No 10 playing from deeper zones more than the more functional midfielders already at the club. The creativity numbers underline that difference.
Chances created and take-ons attempted in the 2025/26 Premier League:
- Tonali: 37 chances created, 48 take-ons.
- Fernandes: 32 chances created, 31 take-ons.
- Sarr: 11, 22.
- Gray: 8, 16.
- Palhinha: 8, 23.
- Bentancur: 10, 32.
Fernandes produced that output in a cautious, relegated West Ham side. Place him in a proactive, front-foot De Zerbi system and the ceiling climbs.
Tonali, by contrast, is the enforcer with a technician’s touch. He will act as the Caicedo figure: a destroyer in the mould of Palhinha or Bentancur, but with more ambition when the ball is at his feet. He can snap into tackles, shield the defence and then immediately look forward, not sideways.
Between them, they give Spurs a double pivot that can press, pass and punch holes. One to orchestrate, one to disrupt, both to drive the game on.
More than numbers: a change of mood
Strip away the graphs and tables and the essence remains the same. Tonali and Fernandes carry the urgency and forward thrust that De Zerbi wants to define this new Tottenham.
They are not midfielders who sit and wait for the match to come to them. They chase it, grab it and try to bend it their way. In a club that has veered between caution and ambition in recent years, that mindset is not a detail. It is the point.
The rebuild has started at the back and surged into midfield. With Tonali and Fernandes at the core, Spurs now have the tools to play the progressive, daring football De Zerbi promised when he walked through the door. The question is no longer whether he can impose his style.
It is how far this version of Tottenham can go once that style truly takes hold.
