Tottenham’s Midfield Revolution: De Zerbi's Game-Changing Signings

Roberto De Zerbi did not arrive at Tottenham Hotspur to tinker. He came to tear up and rewire. The scale of the summer rebuild makes that clear.

The back line went first. Marcos Senesi, Andy Robertson and Martin Dubravka walked through the door on free transfers from AFC Bournemouth, Liverpool and Burnley. Jan Paul van Hecke followed from Brighton & Hove Albion to stiffen the centre of defence.

Now the surgery has reached the heart of the team.

Spurs have landed their fifth and sixth signings of the window in one hit, moving decisively for two high‑profile central midfielders: Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United and Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United. In a single move, De Zerbi has redrawn the map of his engine room.

He favours a 4-2-3-1. That double pivot is non‑negotiable in his football. It must press, it must pass, it must set the rhythm and then rip it up on cue. With Fernandes and Tonali in, Tottenham’s central midfield has effectively been rebuilt overnight.

The question is not why he wanted reinforcements. It is how quickly he can bend these two into the shape of his idea.

De Zerbi-ball, north London edition

De Zerbi used his first seven Premier League matches in charge of Spurs as a fire blanket, not a manifesto. The club were looking over their shoulder; survival trumped style. The tactical revolution waited.

His track record, though, leaves little doubt about what comes next. At Brighton & Hove Albion and Marseille he built teams that suffocated opponents with the ball, then sliced through them when the space finally opened. Long spells of possession. High pressing. Sudden, violent switches into direct, vertical football.

The defining quirk was “press-baiting”. Goalkeepers and centre-backs rolled the ball around in rehearsed patterns, almost inviting pressure. Midfielders offered as short options under the cosh, took the ball on the half-turn, and in three or four passes the whole team exploded upfield as if counter-attacking from deep.

It is controlled chaos. And it demands a certain type of midfielder.

Opta’s data underlines how close De Zerbi’s best Brighton side (2022/23) and Ange Postecoglou’s 2023/24 Spurs looked in pure style. Similar direct speed upfield, similar passes per sequence. Both could slow the game to a hum of short passes, then punch through the lines with a single, daring ball.

De Zerbi wants to drag Spurs back towards that adventurous territory, away from the more pragmatic Thomas Frank era that bridged the gap. To do that, he needs a pair in the middle who can live in tight spaces, pass with nerve under pressure and then hurt teams when the tempo spikes.

At Brighton, that axis was Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo. They balanced craft and combat, control and chaos, and their subsequent moves to Liverpool and Chelsea show the level he is chasing.

In north London, Fernandes and Tonali now inherit that responsibility.

Why Tonali and Fernandes fit the blueprint

Line up the numbers and the logic jumps off the page. Compare Fernandes and Tonali with Spurs’ most-used central midfielders in 2025/26 and the profile shift is obvious.

De Zerbi’s football feeds on aggression without the ball. High turnovers – winning possession in open play within 40 metres of the opposition goal – and relentless ball recoveries form the platform for everything else. It is why Conor Gallagher became such a key figure as an attacking midfielder late last season, harrying from the front and dragging the press higher.

Plot every Premier League player on a graph of high turnovers versus ball recoveries and Tonali and Fernandes push towards the top-right corner – the territory of players who hunt, win, and go again. They add bite and energy to an area that needed more of both.

Then the ball arrives at their feet, and the gap widens further.

On another chart, this time mapping final-third entries against pass accuracy, the two new signings again live among the league’s elite. They complete more passes and more entries into the final third than most, outstripping Spurs’ regular options from last season. That combination – volume, accuracy, and forward intent – is exactly what De Zerbi demands in the “press-baiting” phase and the vertical burst that follows.

The per‑90 statistics tell the same story in hard numbers:

• Tonali completes 13.24 final-third passes and 16.81 forward passes, with an open-play pass accuracy of 84.8%, and wins possession 0.53 times per 90 in the final third.
• Fernandes delivers 10.30 final-third passes, 12.65 forward passes, an 87.8% open-play accuracy, and 0.51 final-third possessions won.

Set those against Spurs’ 2025/26 midfielders – Pape Matar Sarr, Gray, Joao Palhinha, Rodrigo Bentancur – and the upgrade is clear. Sarr, for example, sits at 9.96 final-third passes and 10.55 forward passes per 90. Bentancur offers 7.56 and 11.70 respectively. Both contribute, but neither hits the same blend of progression and precision.

Crucially, Fernandes and Tonali also echo the numbers of De Zerbi’s Brighton reference points. In 2022/23, Mac Allister averaged 14.16 final-third passes, 14.16 forward passes, 87.0% open-play accuracy and a huge 0.90 possessions won in the final third per 90. Caicedo posted 14.22 final-third passes, 15.62 forward passes, 88.7% accuracy and 0.57 possessions won high up the pitch.

Tonali and Fernandes are not clones. But statistically, they sit in the same neighbourhood. That is precisely where De Zerbi wants his midfield to live.

The roles: creator and destroyer, both on the front foot

Within the double pivot, their jobs will not be identical.

Fernandes is the creative one. He can drop deep and spray long, raking passes, slip smart through-balls between the lines or carry the ball past a man when the passing lane closes. His range gives Spurs an extra angle when opponents clog the middle.

His numbers hint at a player more naturally inclined towards a No 10 role than the workmanlike options already at the club. In 2025/26, Fernandes created 32 chances and attempted 31 take-ons. That dwarfs the output of Sarr (11 chances, 22 take-ons), Gray (eight and 16), Palhinha (eight and 23) and even Bentancur (10 and 32).

All of that came in a cautious West Ham side that ended up relegated. Place the same player in a front-foot De Zerbi system that actively encourages risk and forward running, and his creative ceiling rises sharply.

Tonali, by contrast, will be the Caicedo figure. The destroyer with a playmaker’s conscience.

He will snap into tackles, screen the back four and break up counters like a classic holding midfielder – think Palhinha or Bentancur at their most combative – but he will not simply recycle the ball sideways once he wins it. His forward pass volume and accuracy show a player ready to step in, punch the ball through the lines and keep Spurs on the front foot.

Between them, they give De Zerbi the blend he craves: one midfielder who can unlock the door, another who can slam it shut, and both capable of driving the game forward.

A new pulse in the middle of the pitch

Strip away the graphs and tables, and something else stands out about these signings: the sense of urgency they carry.

De Zerbi’s football is not passive. It does not wait for the game to come to it. Fernandes and Tonali fit that mentality. They play with a forward thrust, a readiness to take responsibility, to demand the ball in crowded areas and to make the pass that risks losing it in order to win the next moment.

For Spurs, that is more than a tactical tweak. It is a statement about who they want to be again.

The defence has been rebuilt. The goalkeeper has changed. Now the midfield has a new spine, one that looks built for “De Zerbi-ball” – for baiting the press, breaking the lines and dragging Tottenham back towards progressive, daring football.

The pieces are in place. The next question is simple: how quickly can this new midfield turn numbers on a page into a new identity on the pitch?