Sandro Tonali: Tottenham's Record Signing Exceeds Expectations

Roberto De Zerbi did not bother dressing it up. Asked for his first impression of Tottenham’s new record signing, he went straight to the point.

“Sandro Tonali is better than I thought.”

For a club that has just smashed through the £300million barrier in summer spending, that line will sound like money well spent. Spurs are finalising a £75m deal for Savinho from Manchester City, with a further £10m in add-ons potentially to come, but it is Tonali who sits at the top of their financial pyramid: £100m to prise him from Newcastle and make him the most expensive player in the club’s history.

De Zerbi knows exactly what that kind of price tag brings. Expectation. Scrutiny. Noise. Yet his verdict on the 26-year-old Italy international, after only a few weeks together, carried no hint of caution.

“Sandro Tonali is better than I thought before working with him as a player and as a guy,” he said on Friday. “I know his family, his agents, and I know they all are good people. I’m very happy to work with him and I think he’s the right player in the right place. Especially because we want to put him inside of the project.

“He has the right qualities, the right personality, the right values, to stay in this place.”

This is not a relationship built on a hurried scouting report. De Zerbi and Tonali share roots in Brescia, the city that shaped them both. It is where De Zerbi grew up, and where Tonali spent nine years coming through the ranks and into the first team. That shared footballing upbringing matters to the Spurs head coach. He trusts what Brescia produces.

Tonali arrives in north London with a curious statistical backdrop. In 32 Premier League games for Newcastle last season, he did not score. Not once. For some midfielders, that would be a stick to beat them with. For Tonali, it has not deterred Tottenham in the slightest.

Inside the club, they see a well-balanced midfielder whose influence stretches far beyond the scoresheet. His range of passing, his rhythm in possession, his ability to knit phases together – those are the traits that convinced Spurs to go big. De Zerbi clearly shares that view and wants him embedded at the heart of his project, not just dropped into the team as an expensive ornament.

Tottenham have paid for a cornerstone. De Zerbi already sounds like a coach who believes he has found one.