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

Tottenham’s midfield revolution under Roberto De Zerbi has arrived quickly and without subtlety.

The Italian was always going to rip things up in north London. The early moves were at the back: Marcos Senesi, Andy Robertson and Martin Dubravka all walked through the door on free transfers from AFC Bournemouth, Liverpool and Burnley, while Jan Paul van Hecke came in from Brighton & Hove Albion to stiffen the centre of defence. That alone signalled a reset.

Now the rebuild has hit the engine room.

Spurs have made their fifth and sixth signings of the summer by landing two heavyweight central midfielders: Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United and Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United. With those deals, De Zerbi has effectively redrawn the heart of his team in a single stroke.

De Zerbi’s blueprint: control, chaos and the press-bait

De Zerbi spent his first seven Premier League matches at Spurs firefighting. Survival first, ideas later. The tactical revolution had to wait while he dragged the club clear of relegation danger.

That pause will not last.

His track record at Brighton & Hove Albion and Marseille is clear: teams that dominate the ball, press ferociously and flip in an instant from patient possession to blistering, direct attacks. The defining feature is “press-baiting” – passing out from the back in rehearsed patterns, luring opponents on, then slicing through the space they leave behind and charging forward as if on the counter.

It is a style that drags Spurs away from the more measured Thomas Frank era and back towards the high-wire, front-foot football Ange Postecoglou brought at his peak. Data from Opta underlines the similarity. De Zerbi’s 2022/23 Brighton and Postecoglou’s 2023/24 Spurs posted near-identical numbers for direct speed upfield and passes per sequence, a blend that shows both could play through teams slowly or rip through them in a handful of touches.

To make that work, the two central midfielders in De Zerbi’s preferred 4-2-3-1 are non-negotiable. They must run, press, tackle. They must also take the ball under pressure, move it in one or two touches, then punch passes through the lines when the tempo rises. At Brighton, Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo were that double act. They have since become mainstays at Liverpool and Chelsea.

In north London, Fernandes and Tonali are being asked to play that role.

Why Tonali and Fernandes fit De Zerbi-ball

Line them up against Spurs’ most-used central midfielders from 2025/26 and the logic behind these signings jumps off the page.

De Zerbi’s sides live off aggressive pressing. High turnovers – winning the ball in open play within 40 metres of the opposition goal – and rapid ball recoveries are the currency. Conor Gallagher’s importance as an attacking midfielder late last season stemmed from that relentless energy out of possession.

Tonali and Fernandes arrive to push that intensity deeper into midfield. On league-wide plots of high turnovers and ball recoveries, they sit among the players who most consistently squeeze opponents high and win the ball back quickly.

On the ball, the contrast is just as stark. In metrics that track final-third entries and pass accuracy, both new signings stand out. They complete more passes and more entries into the final third than most Premier League midfielders, including Spurs’ regular options last year, which points to exactly the mix De Zerbi craves: calm circulation when pressed, then vertical incision.

The numbers underline it:

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

Compare that with Spurs’ existing midfielders in 2025/26. Pape Sarr (9.96 final-third passes, 10.55 forward passes, 84.4% accuracy, 0.32 final-third possessions won) comes closest. The likes of Gray, Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur trail them in either progression, accuracy or high regains.

Then look back to De Zerbi’s Brighton benchmark. In 2022/23, Mac Allister posted 14.16 final-third passes, 14.16 forward passes, 87.0% accuracy and 0.90 possessions won in the final third. Caicedo recorded 14.22, 15.62, 88.7% and 0.57 respectively. Tonali and Fernandes sit in that neighbourhood, not just above Spurs’ incumbents.

This is not tinkering. It is a deliberate attempt to recreate the profile of that Brighton double pivot.

Roles and responsibility: the new double act

Fernandes brings the creativity. He is a midfielder who can spray long, raking diagonals, slip clever through-balls or simply drive past a marker to break a line. His game leans towards a No 10’s instincts rather than the more functional styles Spurs have relied upon in the middle.

The creative data backs that up. In 2025/26, Fernandes created 32 chances and attempted 31 take-ons. Among Spurs’ central midfielders, only Tonali, with 37 chances created and 48 take-ons attempted, sits above him. Sarr, Gray, Palhinha and Bentancur all lag behind in both categories.

All of this came in a West Ham side that played cautiously and ended up relegated. Drop Fernandes into a front-foot De Zerbi system, with more bodies ahead of the ball and more rehearsed patterns to exploit, and those numbers have room to climb.

Tonali offers the balance. He is the Caicedo figure in this story: a destroyer by instinct, in the mould of Palhinha or Bentancur, but with a more assertive approach when possession is won. He can snap into tackles, then step into midfield and play forward, rather than simply shuffling the ball sideways.

Together, they give De Zerbi a pairing that can both hunt and build. One to probe, one to protect, both to press.

The new Spurs pulse

Strip away the charts and tables and something else stands out about these signings.

They match the manager’s personality. De Zerbi coaches with urgency, with a demand to play forward, to take risks, to live high up the pitch. Tonali and Fernandes play with that same forward thrust. They are not safety-first midfielders. They want the ball, they want to win it back, and they want to hurt teams with it.

Spurs have spent years veering between pragmatism and ambition, between control and chaos. With De Zerbi, and now with his chosen midfield pair, the direction looks clearer.

The question is no longer whether Tottenham will change under him. It is how far this new, daring core can carry them.