Tottenham's deal to sign Sandro Tonali from Newcastle continues an exhaustive overhaul under head coach Roberto De Zerbi. At £100m, he becomes the most expensive, and the most important, of six summer signings so far.
While , his new midfield partner, arrives having shown potential to become one of the Premier League's leading midfielders at 21, Tonali is already there. The 26-year-old is entering his peak years, ready-made and established among the elite.
The view from Newcastle is that they have secured an excellent fee. Tonali was of course a key player for Eddie Howe but struggled to find consistency last season. The club have nearly doubled their money on the Italy international in the space of three years.
Spurs, though, will feel confident he can justify the expense under a head coach with whom he has connections. Tonali started his career at Brescia, in the city where De Zerbi grew up.
"Let's say De Zerbi played a huge role in this decision," Tonali told Sky in Italy. "He made a huge difference. He acted as a fellow native of Brescia and a friend, but he also demonstrated that he had a lot of work behind him, and that he is committed to it."
Tonali faced De Zerbi's Sassuolo side on numerous occasions while in Italy, first with Brescia then with AC Milan, and has spent the intervening years honing attributes which can elevate Spurs.
Firstly, there is a level of technical ability which Spurs badly lacked among their midfield options last season. Like Fernandes, Tonali is comfortable dictating play, serving as a bridge between defence and attack and moving the ball quickly and incisively.
There is a clear difference when comparing his passing numbers to those of Rodrigo Bentancur and Joao Palhinha, Spurs' most-used central midfield pairing last season.
Tonali made roughly twice as many passes ending in the final third. According to Opta, he also averaged considerably more line-breaking passes, reflecting a greater willingness than Bentancur or Palhinha to be proactive and launch attacks.
Progressing the ball aggressively is vital to De Zerbi's philosophy and helps to explain why he also targeted centre-backs, in Jan Paul van Hecke and Marcos Sensei, who rank among the most ambitious, forward-thinking passers in the Premier League.
The signing of Tonali highlights De Zerbi's desire to transform the physical profile of the side as well as its technical profile. His athleticism, as a box-to-box midfielder who contributes at both ends, was recently talked up by Your Site pundit Jamie Carragher.
"Tonali is a midfielder I really rate," Carragher told Your Site News. "He's got great pace and great power in midfield. He's certainly a player I looked at thinking about Liverpool."
His pace can be seen in Premier League tracking data.
Tonali's top speed of 36.06 kilometres per hour last season ranked as the 14th-highest among the 551 players to feature in the competition, above even his new team-mate Micky van de Ven in a top 15 otherwise dominated by forwards and full-backs.
Of the 145 players categorised by Opta as central midfielders, Tonali in fact ranked as the quickest. Howe outlined the value of his speed across the ground out of possession last season.
"Sometimes it's not necessarily a quality that registers immediately," he said. "But with the number of times that he reads the game, reads where the ball is going to drop and is there first, you realise it's a massive skill of his, his athleticism, his speed."
Tonali played an important role in snuffing out opposition counter-attacks for Newcastle - "defensively, I think Sandro is one of the reasons why we have been so strong," added Howe - and De Zerbi will likely seek to use his athleticism in the same way.
Tonali's dynamism and defensive diligence can also be seen in Opta's numbers for runs tracking back into position. His total of 144 such runs last season was the highest by a Newcastle player and the seventh-highest by anyone in the competition as a whole.
He offers robustness too. Tonali joined Newcastle having only missed six Serie A games out of 76 in his final two seasons at AC Milan and has suffered no notable injuries at Newcastle.
Since returning from the 10-month betting ban that disrupted his first season in the Premier League in August 2025, he has played nearly 80 per cent of Premier League minutes, behind only Bruno Guimaraes and Dan Burn among team-mates in that timeframe.
Former Italy boss Luciano Spalletti cherished Tonali's completeness. "He has the ability to help everyone on the pitch because he knows how to do everything," he said. While Howe has described him in similar terms, indulging comparisons with Andrea Pirlo while highlighting the additional qualities he brings to the table.
"He's definitely got those similar qualities in terms of build and style, but I think the thing that sets Sandro apart from anyone else is that he can do all of those things technically and tactically, and look really good, while having his athleticism and ability to run as well."
For Spurs and De Zerbi, it's an all-round package worth the expense.
