Tottenham's £237m Spending Spree: De Zerbi's Hunt for Another Attacker
Roberto De Zerbi is not done yet. Not even close, if you believe his own description.
Tottenham have already thrown around roughly £237million in this window, six new faces dragged through the doors in north London to reshape a squad that fell short last season. Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes and Jan Paul van Hecke have all arrived for serious money. Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka have come in on frees to thicken the spine and stiffen the competition.
Most clubs would call that a window. De Zerbi calls it about “60 per cent” of a project.
The Italian, speaking to football.london, painted a vivid picture of his mindset when the market opens. “In the transfer market, when I want one player, I become like a shark. No chance to say no,” he said. It was not a throwaway line. It sounded like a warning.
Tottenham are closing in on another attacker. That is the clear message. The head coach insists the spending is not over, and the profile of player he wants is already sharply defined.
Standard Sport understands that Spurs hold a concrete interest in Manchester City winger Savinho, with the Brazilian having told City earlier this week that he wants to leave in search of regular minutes. He is high on a list of targets drawn up in March during negotiations between De Zerbi and sporting director Johan Lange.
Savinho fits the brief: direct, quick, and dangerous when running in behind. The kind of wide forward who stretches a back line and forces defenders to turn. The kind of player De Zerbi believes can ignite the full-backs he is building around.
The pressure to land that type of winger is rising as the window ticks towards its September 1 deadline. Attacking reinforcements remain the priority, with Spurs open to bringing in both a winger and potentially another striker before the market shuts.
De Zerbi has already teased that “another bomba” is on the way. Asked if a deal was close, he admitted details still need ironing out but made it clear he wants negotiations wrapped up quickly. The sense is of a club accelerating, not easing off.
Behind that urgency lies a clear tactical blueprint. De Zerbi is not looking for just any winger. He wants one who unlocks what he sees as one of the strongest full-back units in the game.
“No two players are the same,” he said. “A winger can be a very wide winger, one able to come inside, a winger without a full-back, a winger able to play with the full-back.”
For him, everything starts on the flanks. “We have four great full-backs at the moment, maybe the four most important full-backs in the world, because I think Pedro Porro is the best right-back in the world, with [Destiny] Udogie, Robertson, and Djed Spence can play right and left.
“Before bringing in a winger, we have to consider the full-back, because we start from the full-back, from the player we already have, no?”
It is a revealing line. Tottenham’s rebuild under De Zerbi is not just about stockpiling talent; it is about fitting pieces around the players he trusts most. Porro and Udogie were already key figures. Robertson’s arrival adds title-winning experience on the left. Spence, who has struggled to find a home since joining Spurs, is now being talked up as a two-sided option.
The next wide attacker, then, is being chosen not just for goals or assists, but for how he syncs with those full-backs. A winger who hugs the touchline to free Porro’s underlaps? One who darts inside to open the outside lane for Robertson? These are the questions driving the final weeks of Tottenham’s window.
The numbers tell one story: £237m, six signings, and a squad that looks deeper and more balanced than it did at the end of last season. De Zerbi’s words tell another: the project is barely past halfway in his mind.
He has his shark in the water now. The only question is which winger becomes the “bomba” that detonates the next phase of Tottenham’s evolution.
