De Zerbi's Midfield Revolution at Tottenham: Tonali and Fernandes Impact

Roberto De Zerbi did not arrive at Tottenham Hotspur to tinker. He came to rip things up and start again. The rebuild was always going to be radical; the speed of it has been striking.

First came the backline. Marcos Senesi through the door. Andy Robertson on the left. Martin Dubravka in goal. Jan Paul van Hecke added to the centre-half pool. All snapped up as contracts expired at AFC Bournemouth, Liverpool and Burnley, or bought from Brighton & Hove Albion, and all pointing to a defensive unit reshaped in his image.

Now the revolution has moved into the engine room.

Spurs have made their fifth and sixth signings of the summer in one sweeping move, landing two high-profile central midfielders: Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United and Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United. One transfer window, one position group, completely reimagined.

The System Demands a Different Kind of Midfielder

De Zerbi’s preferred framework is clear: 4-2-3-1. Two central midfielders with huge responsibility. In that shape, you either own the middle of the pitch or you suffer in it.

His first seven Premier League matches in charge of Spurs were about survival, not ideology. He parked the grand plan and focused on staving off relegation. Job done, just. Now comes the football he’s known for.

History tells you what that looks like. At Brighton and at Marseille, De Zerbi built teams that dominated the ball, pressed high and then, in a heartbeat, went straight for the throat. Slow, deliberate possession one moment; explosive, direct attacks the next.

The defining trait was “press-baiting”. Centre-backs and midfielders inviting pressure, passing in rehearsed patterns, daring opponents to jump out of shape. Once the press came, they played through or around it and charged forward as if on the counter-attack, even though they’d had the ball all along.

It is a style that drags Spurs away from the more measured Thomas Frank era and back towards the front-foot daring of Ange Postecoglou – but with an extra layer of calculated risk in their build-up.

Opta’s data underlines the kinship. De Zerbi’s Brighton in 2022/23 and Postecoglou’s Spurs in 2023/24 sit side by side on the graph: high direct speed upfield, healthy passes per sequence. Both teams could zip forward quickly, but were also comfortable stitching together patient passing moves.

To live in that world, your central midfielders cannot be passengers. They must be aggressive without the ball, brave with it. They need to take the ball under pressure, play one-touch combinations in tight spaces, then suddenly punch vertical passes through the lines when the tempo rises.

At Brighton, Alexis Mac Allister and Moises Caicedo did it brilliantly, earning moves to Liverpool and Chelsea. In north London, Fernandes and Tonali are being asked to carry that same load.

Why Tonali and Fernandes Fit De Zerbi-Ball

Put Tonali and Fernandes next to Spurs’ most-used central midfielders from 2025/26 and the logic of the recruitment becomes obvious.

De Zerbi’s football thrives on pressing with intent. Conor Gallagher’s late-season surge as an attacking midfielder was no accident; his ability to hunt the ball high up the pitch fit the manager’s demands perfectly.

Tonali and Fernandes are built for that kind of work. Across the league, players who sit in the top-right corner of the high-turnovers-versus-ball-recoveries graph are the ones who repeatedly win the ball back in dangerous areas and hoover up loose possession. That’s the territory these two occupy.

Then there is what happens once they have it.

On another Opta plot, the top-right quadrant belongs to those who both move the ball into the final third and complete a high percentage of their passes. Again, Tonali and Fernandes live there. They complete more passes and more final-third entries than most Premier League midfielders – and crucially, more than Spurs’ existing options.

The numbers are stark. Per 90 minutes:

• Tonali completes 13.24 final-third passes and 16.81 forward passes, with 84.8% open-play pass accuracy and 0.53 possessions won in the final third.
• Fernandes hits 10.30 final-third passes, 12.65 forward passes, an 87.8% open-play accuracy and 0.51 possessions won in the final third.

Compare that with Spurs’ 2025/26 core:

• Pape Sarr: 9.96 final-third passes, 10.55 forward passes, 84.4% accuracy, 0.32 possessions won high.
• Gray: 6.57 final-third passes, 10.77 forward passes, 82.7% accuracy, 0.12 high regains.
• Joao Palhinha: 5.53 final-third passes, 12.86 forward passes, 81.8% accuracy, 0.20 high regains.
• Rodrigo Bentancur: 7.56 final-third passes, 11.70 forward passes, 85.6% accuracy, 0.33 high regains.

Tonali and Fernandes do not just raise the floor; they pull Spurs’ midfield closer to De Zerbi’s Brighton peak. Mac Allister in 2022/23 posted 14.16 final-third passes, 14.16 forward passes, 87.0% accuracy and a remarkable 0.90 possessions won in the final third. Caicedo delivered 14.22 final-third passes, 15.62 forward passes, 88.7% accuracy and 0.57 high regains.

The new pair sit in that same statistical neighbourhood. That is no coincidence.

Roles Defined: The Creator and the Destroyer

Fernandes brings something Spurs have lacked in the middle: a genuine creator from deep. He can hit long, raking diagonals. He can slide clever through-balls between centre-back and full-back. He can carry the ball past the first line with a dribble and then release at the right moment.

In feel, he is closer to a No 10 than to the more functional profiles already in the squad. The numbers back that up.

Across the 2025/26 season, in terms of creativity and take-ons:

• Tonali created 37 chances and attempted 48 take-ons.
• Fernandes created 32 chances and attempted 31 take-ons.

Spurs’ incumbents lagged behind:

• Sarr: 11 chances, 22 take-ons.
• Gray: 8 chances, 16 take-ons.
• Palhinha: 8 chances, 23 take-ons.
• Bentancur: 10 chances, 32 take-ons.

And Fernandes did that in a conservative West Ham side that ended up relegated. Put that level of invention into a front-foot De Zerbi team and his creative output should only climb.

Tonali, by contrast, is the Caicedo figure. He will sit deeper, snap into duels, and shield the defence like Palhinha or Bentancur, but with more ambition on the ball. He is a destroyer who does not just break up play; he restarts it, quickly and forward.

He wins it, then looks upfield. He presses high, then plays through the lines. He fits the manager’s demand for midfielders who do not simply recycle possession but drive it.

More Than Numbers: A Change of Mood

Strip away the graphs and tables and something else stands out about these signings: the intent.

Tonali and Fernandes match De Zerbi’s footballing personality. Urgent. Forward-thinking. Unafraid to take risks in areas of the pitch where mistakes can be punished, because that is where the rewards are greatest.

They are not safety-first options. They are not there to slow the game down. They are there to grab matches by the collar, to turn Spurs’ midfield from a zone of caution into a launchpad.

Tottenham have rebuilt their defence. Now they have wired a new brain – and a new pulse – into the centre of the pitch.

If De Zerbi’s blueprint takes hold, this could be the summer when Spurs stop merely surviving game states and start dictating them again.