Although Tottenham Hotspur fans are beyond fired up about the signing of Sandro Tonali, who is going to be the club's most talented deep lying midfielder in ages, fan around the rest of the Premier League and Europe have been a little bit more critical due to the price tag and his lack of stellar performances at Newcastle United compared to AC Milan.
Spurs spent 100 million pounds to make sure Roberto De Zerbi landed his fellow Brescia native ahead of strong interest from Premier League title contenders Arsenal and Manchester City, but the fact that a team that went 17th in the league in back to back seasons took home Tonali over both Arsenal and Man City deserves a lot more praise than it is getting.
The crux of the criticism centers around the price and whether or not Tonali will be worth it, but Tottenham fans have this funny feeling after watching this Rolls Royce of a midfielder go to work in the preseason that the opposite question may be poised in about six months time. And that question will be not if Tonali was worth 100 million pounds, but rather how Spurs managed to sign him for only 100 million pounds.
Sandro Tonali can still outplay his price tag
Declan Rice, Moises Caicedo, Enzo Fernandez, and other top defensive midfield targets in and outside of the Premier League have gone for exorbitant fees exceeding what Spurs paid for Tonali, and Tottenham Hotspur may have actually gotten a rare bargain here because the Newcastle system was so poor at getting the most out of Tonali's technical and passing gifts.
Sandro Tonali was the leader, anchor point, main defensive cover player, and deep lying playmaker for that 2021/22 AC Milan side that reascended to the top of Italian football and won the Scudetto for the first time in ages. And since leaving the Rossoneri behind for the Magpies up north, Milan have won precisely nothing.
Tottenham had to be looking at that with eyes as big as saucers, knowing that Tonali can offer them so much more in the Roberto De Zerbi system than he was Newcastle in the boring, pedantic style of Eddie Howe that catered more to Bruno Guimaraes than it did the Italian international.
Tonali is entering the prime of his career, and he is a unit of an athlete and an intelligent defensive midfielder with better technique than anyone on Tottenham right now. He is bound to have a massive year, and he really might have people wondering if Spurs just landed someone closer to 120-150 million pounds in transfer value.