Tottenham's Ambitious Summer Signings: A New Era Begins
Tottenham have spent two years staring into the abyss. Now they are spending big to pretend it never happened.
Back-to-back 17th-place finishes, a final day escape and a fanbase living on its nerves – Europa League glory last season offered a gleaming distraction, but it did not hide how close Spurs came to disaster. Roberto De Zerbi, parachuted in after Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor failed to make the job stick, dragged them over the line. Survival, not swagger, was the story.
This summer is designed to change that.
London, money, and the “main man” pitch
The club have gone hard in the market. Italy international Sandro Tonali, ex-West Ham midfielder Mateus Fernandes and former Brighton defender Jan Paul van Hecke have all walked through the doors at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with the board fending off rival interest to land their targets and prove Spurs still carry weight.
But why Tonali? Why Spurs, and why now?
For Danny Murphy, the answer starts with the postcode and the pay packet, but doesn’t end there. Speaking to GOAL in association with BetWright, the former Tottenham midfielder didn’t sugar-coat the reality of modern recruitment.
“I think it would be naive to think that London isn't a pull for a lot of the foreign boys. I say that through experience and speaking to them,” he said.
Murphy suggested that if the true heavyweights of English football had matched Tottenham’s push, the story might have been different.
“My gut feeling is that if one of the really big boys, i.e. Man U, Man City, Liverpool, came in for him as strongly as Tottenham in terms of finances as well, then he might have gone there. Because to pick a location over winning trophies isn't something many players would do. But London is a pull. I don't know who was in for him for sure.”
The financial muscle clearly mattered.
“The one advantage you have going to Tottenham, other than London, is the financial side. They've really pushed the boat out to get him. Maybe some of the other clubs who were in for him didn't push the boat out to that level.”
Yet Murphy was keen to stress that this is not just a tale of greed and glamour. The football still counts – especially the promise of being central, not peripheral.
“The other factor, to give him credit and other footballers, because not every footballer is just greed-obsessed and location-obsessed, is that you have a conversation with the coach when you're talking about which club you're going to go to. Maybe if there was interest from elsewhere, there wasn't a guarantee you're always going to play.
“I don't know that, but I know of situations in the past where a player would choose a club where he's been reassured that he's going to be the main man, he's going to play every week.
“I would imagine the mix of being the main man in the middle of the park, phenomenal wages, and London probably was a mixture of all three. I'd like to think it was a mixture of that as well.”
Murphy doesn’t shy away from the less romantic side of the game.
“I don't like to think of players purely moving based on money or location, but it does happen. I think that he's a terrific signing and they've done really well to get him irrelevant of the cost and the amount of wages. I think he'll really improve them.”
A swollen squad and a statement of intent
Tonali is the headline, but he is not the only signal that Spurs are trying to shed their relegation-fight skin. The early business, in Murphy’s eyes, sends a clear message.
“It's a statement of intent, much needed,” he said. “I think the only difficulty around what I'm seeing there is at the moment, until the dealings are all done, they've got a heavy squad anyway.”
Here lies the tension. Tottenham are not in Europe. One game a week, but a dressing room full of players expecting minutes. That is a different kind of pressure for De Zerbi.
“When you're not in Europe, you've got to be very good at your job as a manager to be able to keep that many players happy when you've only got Premier League football. That could become a little problematic unless we start seeing a bit of an exodus of players from Tottenham.”
And that exodus is not straightforward. The market tends to remember performances, and Spurs’ underachievers did little to advertise themselves.
“The problem with that, of course, is a lot of them who were poor last season, who were on good wages, how many takers have they got? So, there's still some work to do at Tottenham, but I do like what they've done.”
Murphy is impressed by the profile of the arrivals.
“I like Van Hecke, I like Fernandes. I think [James] Maddison coming back is going to be a big plus for them as well because we know what he brings.”
Add a fit and firing Maddison to Tonali dictating the tempo, Fernandes adding legs and Van Hecke stiffening the back line, and the picture starts to sharpen. This is not a squad built to flirt with the drop.
“I think realistically for them, top six has got to be a realistic ambition. Top four might be a push to jump that high so quickly, but top six is realistic for them with the players they're bringing in.”
From clinging on in 17th to talking about the top six in a single summer is a bold leap. Tottenham have paid to make it possible. Now De Zerbi has to prove that this is not just another expensive illusion, but the start of a team that belongs back in the upper reaches of the Premier League table.
