The dust has settled on what has been an extremely eventful Tottenham Hotspur summer transfer window. You can see how busy Spurs were from the transfer summary article, which isn’t even complete despite me doing my best to track it all summer long. (Alasdair Gold counted 54 moves this summer in all squads including reserves and U-squads; clearly I missed some, especially in the youth and reserve teams.) If nothing else, Tottenham Hotspur was certainly not idle.
But how did we do? Well… it’s complicated.
Spurs spend an obscene amount of money on new signings (£394m by best estimation, not including purchase options), offset a great deal by numerous player sales (£264m including options). The net spend is actually not that bad — £130m all said, which puts it in line with transfer spends in the last few years of the Daniel Levy era.
Spurs have turned over the club in Roberto De Zerbi’s image, and whether you think that’s a positive or not is very likely going to color your perception of the window as a whole. Matty and I have our takes. Let’s see what you think!
Matty Flatt
Okay, so I’m going to get meta on you all right now. How do you even grade a transfer window? Do you look purely at the players brought in? Or do you look a level deeper, at what those signings imply about leadership and process? In my writing of this blurb, I went back and looked at my summary this time last year (which, by the way I rated as a C+, a rating I would say was pretty apt given the ensuing results, even though many thought we were being overly negative). Here’s part of what I said:
There’s a few things you need to take into account when looking at this window. There’s the actual players signed; there’s outgoings; there’s the strategic fit; and then there’s the timeline by which this happened and the process behind it all. The latter was a resounding, unequivocal failure.
Interesting. This summer is almost the opposite: bringing in Rafi Moersen to manage Spurs’ transfer dealings seemed to unlock the logjam in Spurs’ process, with a record number of players in and out and several key acquisitions brought in early in the window.
So, what about the players? Well, in a vacuum, Spurs’ attack has probably been made slightly better, the midfield improved, and the defense is worse. Spurs are lacking in creativity thanks to injury, but in general, you could say the squad is probably better than it was. That’s enough for a pass mark.
The problem is in the players themselves, or rather, what their signings say about what’s going on behind the scenes: that strategic piece. Instead of prioritizing a Director of Football to replace the hapless Johan Lange, all power was given to Roberto De Zerbi and the club immediately became laser-focused on players with whom he was familiar. Jan Paul van Hecke played under RDZ at Brighton & Hove Albion; likewise Mudryk at Shakhtar Donetsk. Sandro Tonali came from the same town as RDZ. He was reportedly obsessed with Marmoush. And guess what? Football managers are often terrible talent scouts, despite what the game would have you believe.
Does this make them bad players? No, and to be clear, Spurs made some fantastic signings and did a great job of moving on some of the deadwood; Savio and Mateus Fernandes in particular could be huge for Spurs. What is clear, though, is this is a squad shaped in De Zerbi’s image: the image of a famously volatile coach who in 2 years is unlikely to be at the club. What happens at that point? Another squad overhaul, as we’ll have a chunk of players pushing 30 on massive wages who no longer fit for whatever the next manager wants to do.
Instead of taking the chance for a strategic reset and to incrementally invest in the squad, we now have a team that is only slightly better than last season’s but sky-high expectations due to the investment. Spurs have spent significantly to create a team that is barely better than tenth place. Maybe I’m wrong; but I don’t think I am. And once the pressure ramps up, our Director of Football (by which I mean Roberto De Zerbi) will be out of here and we’ll start this all again.
Are Spurs Sisyphus? Instead of Zeus, did the club cheat some footballing god? It sure feels like it.
Grade: B- (signings) / C+ (outgoings) / F (strategy) / A (process)
Overall: C+
Dustin George-Miller
On the one hand, Tottenham has torn up the financial and transfer strategy they employed for 20 years under Daniel Levy, something that probably needed to happen. Not just torn up — smashed, charred to ash, swept into a pile and poured into a locked box that is then set into an isolated air-gapped room with a sign on the door reading “Beware of the Leopard.” Out with austerity and financial prudence, in with utter chaos and spending like the big team we’ve pretended to be for years.
Is that good? Well, that depends on a lot of things.
Tottenham’s summer transfer window is the start of something new. Two consecutive 17th place finishes (even with the club’s first trophy in years) meant that things HAD to change, one way or the other. And change it did. I’m just not sure it’s change in a way that’s sustainable, strategic, and sound. Tottenham appointed Roberto De Zerbi to save the club from relegation, and he did that — barely. As a reward, he was essentially named de facto Director of Football and given an extraordinary amount of power over what players to bring in and which players to let go.
As for the players, there’s a lot to like, but a lot that makes me nervous. Savio, Omar Marmoush, and Mateus Fernandes look like savvy, if expensive, signings to form the core of what could be the next great Tottenham team. Spending £100m for Sandro Tonali, who is a good but still limited midfielder who has of yet has not shown the ability commensurate with his outrageous transfer fee, feels at present like a bad signing. Andy Robertson looks good on paper, but is not the swashbuckling fullback everyone remembers from Liverpool. Jan Paul van Hecke looks like an amazing passer, but paired with Micky van de Ven, that back line looks strong on technical ability, but lighter on actual defending.
The outgoings are also notable. I understand and respect De Zerbi selling anyone who wanted to bail, and I do find it odd that so many fans are so up in arms about selling players, notably Kevin Danso, Cuti Romero, and Djed Spence) from a team that finished 17th two consecutive seasons and who wanted to leave, along with the failure to understand that selling players outside the Premier League will result in a smaller fee, because nobody else has that much money.
As Matty says above, the end result is a hodge-podge squad of a lot of new faces that will take time and patience to gel. The offense is better. The midfield is marginally better. The defense could be a little rough, at least at first. Spurs made some savvy moves along with some real head-scratchers like Mykhailo Mudryk, whom again was signed only because Roberto De Zerbi wanted him. Scouting, recruitment, and advanced analysis all seem to have taken a back seat this summer, and one wonders whether there’s some simmering discontent behind the scenes.
What frustrates me most about this window is the process. To be sure, a hard reset was needed, but strategic resets take not only money, but time. This summer felt to me like Spurs shoveled money at the problem in an attempt to short-cut their way to respectability, and that frightens me a lot. De Zerbi is not a manager who stays long at clubs, but he has taken the opportunity here to remake the club in his image. The only question is — what happens when he’s no longer here? Why has the club spent so much money and other forms of capital to appease a single manager, instead of working to build a structure that will be effective no matter who the manager is?
It’s hard for me not to forget that the people in charge at Spurs are the same ones that led the club to near relegation due to poor recruitment and strategy. They do not get the benefit of the doubt from me. This window is a success on one level, but from a structural standpoint something close to failure, and still a very, VERY open question as to its viability this season and in the future.
Grade: B- (but one point away from a C+)
Carty Free Readers Vote on the Window
Yesterday, I put a simple poll in the Feed asking readers to assign a letter grade to Tottenham’s window. I know it’s simplistic and doesn’t allow for much nuance, but it’s also the easiest tool I have to gauge reader opinion. You can click through to the Feed to read some of the comments, which are illuminating. What sticks out to me from the poll and commentariat comments is excitement from the early part of the window being tempered by the sale of popular players plus some questionable late moves that felt rushed and ill-conceived, and some mild wariness over Spurs’ player targeting.
Thanks to everyone who voted (and the poll is still open until Saturday).
