Roberto De Zerbi's Ambitious Midfield Overhaul at Tottenham

Roberto De Zerbi did not arrive at Tottenham Hotspur to tinker. He came to tear down and rebuild, and the scale of the summer so far shows he meant every word of his brief.

The clear-out started at the back. Marcos Senesi walked through the door first, a centre-back with a rugged edge. Andy Robertson followed, a serial winner at Liverpool now repurposed as the experienced lieutenant on the left. Martin Dubravka came in to refresh the goalkeeping department after his Burnley contract ended. Jan Paul van Hecke, signed from Brighton & Hove Albion, added another centre-half tailored to De Zerbi’s demands.

That was the foundation. The real surgery was always going to come in midfield.

Now Spurs have gone to the heart of the team and ripped it up in one move, landing Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United and Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United as their fifth and sixth signings of the window. Two central midfielders, two statements, and a clear indication of where De Zerbi wants to take this side.

A midfield built for risk

De Zerbi leans on a 4-2-3-1. The double pivot is non-negotiable, and at Spurs it has now been reimagined in his image.

His opening seven Premier League matches in charge were about survival, not ideology. Spurs were too close to trouble to indulge in grand experiments, so the tactical revolution waited. The blueprint, though, has never changed.

De Zerbi’s Brighton & Hove Albion and Marseille sides were defined by what has become his calling card: “press-baiting”. The ball starts deep, centre-backs and goalkeeper shuffling it between them in rehearsed patterns. Opponents are invited to press, to smell blood. Then, once they commit, the trap is sprung. A sharp vertical pass, a sudden change of gear, and the team races forward as if on the counter-attack, even though the move began on their own six-yard line.

It is football that fuses control with chaos. Long spells of patient possession, then a jolt of direct, aggressive play straight through the lines.

For Spurs, that marks a step away from the more pragmatic, structured approach of Thomas Frank and back towards the front-foot, high-risk, high-reward style associated with Ange Postecoglou at his peak in north London. Opta’s data underlines the kinship: De Zerbi’s Brighton of 2022/23 and Postecoglou’s Spurs of 2023/24 posted similar numbers for direct speed upfield and passes per sequence. Both sides could probe and pass, then suddenly slice through teams at pace.

To make that work, the central midfielders cannot just be tidy. They have to be relentless.

They must press high, hunt the ball, and win it back in dangerous areas. They must also be brave enough to take the ball under pressure, play one-touch combinations in tight spaces, and then, when the moment comes, punch passes through the opposition’s shape with conviction.

At Brighton, De Zerbi had a perfect pair: Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo. They controlled games, broke lines, and then cashed in on that control with sharp, vertical play. Now Fernandes and Tonali are being asked to bring that same blend of ferocity and finesse to north London.

Why these two?

Set Fernandes and Tonali against Spurs’ most-used central midfielders from 2025/26 and the logic behind the recruitment jumps off the page.

De Zerbi’s football demands that his midfielders drive the press. Conor Gallagher showed that last season, becoming a key figure as an attacking midfielder because of his work without the ball, charging down defenders and forcing errors high up the pitch.

Tonali and Fernandes fit that template. On league-wide graphs plotting high turnovers – winning possession in open play within 40 metres of the opposition goal – against ball recoveries, they sit in the territory De Zerbi covets: active, aggressive, constantly involved in the fight for second balls.

Then there is what they do when they actually get it.

On another set of metrics, mapping final-third entries against passing accuracy, both Tonali and Fernandes again stand out. They complete more passes and more final-third entries than most Premier League midfielders, including Spurs’ regulars last season. That combination – security in possession and a willingness to play forward – is exactly what De Zerbi needs in the engine room.

The numbers reinforce the eye test. Per 90 minutes, Tonali and Fernandes do not just upgrade Spurs’ current options; they sit in the same statistical bracket as Mac Allister and Caicedo from Brighton’s peak 2022/23 campaign.

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

Compare that with Spurs’ recent midfield core: Pape Matar Sarr, Gray, Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur all lag behind in either progression, accuracy, or high regains. Mac Allister and Caicedo still set the gold standard – both above 14 final-third passes per 90 and with elite accuracy – but the gap is no longer a chasm.

For De Zerbi, this is not incremental improvement. It is a structural shift.

Roles in the new Spurs machine

Fernandes arrives as the creative spark in the double pivot. His profile leans closer to a No 10 than to the industrious, safety-first midfielders already on the books.

He can hit long, diagonal passes that flip the point of attack. He can slide through-balls between centre-back and full-back. He can carry the ball past the first line with a dribble when passing lanes are blocked. His chance-creation numbers underline that edge: 32 chances created and 31 take-ons attempted, far beyond Spurs’ existing central options.

Those figures came in a West Ham United side that played cautious, reactive football and ended up relegated. Put the same player into a De Zerbi team that insists on having the ball and invites risk, and the ceiling rises sharply.

Tonali brings the bite. He is the Caicedo analogue in this project – the destroyer with a playmaker’s instincts.

Like Palhinha or Bentancur, he can sit in front of the defence, snap into tackles, and shield the back line. Unlike many pure stoppers, he also wants to drive the game forward. His volume of forward passes and final-third deliveries shows a midfielder who does not just win the ball and hand it off; he looks to impose himself on the next phase as well.

Between them, they offer De Zerbi the balance he craves: one slightly more creative, one slightly more destructive, both aggressive, both comfortable in tight spaces, both willing to play on the edge.

The De Zerbi imprint

Strip away the data and the appeal becomes even clearer. Fernandes and Tonali share De Zerbi’s footballing personality.

They play with urgency. They look forward first. They embrace the risk that comes with building from the back and committing bodies ahead of the ball. They are not content to shuffle sideways and wait for something to happen; they want to make it happen.

For Spurs, that represents more than a summer refresh. It is a deliberate step back towards progressive, daring football – the kind that can electrify a stadium but also demands courage from the first whistle to the last.

The rebuild has started in defence, but the soul of De Zerbi’s Tottenham will live in this new midfield. Now the question is simple: can Fernandes and Tonali turn bold ideas into winning habits in north London?