With Bayern Munich midfielder João Palhinha close to signing for Tottenham Hotspur on loan, we look at why Thomas Frank wants to bring him back to the Premier League.
It was the first ever north London derby to be played outside of England as Arsenal took on Tottenham Hotspur in Hong Kong on Thursday, with Spurs winning 1-0.
Granted, it was only a friendly, if there is such a thing between these two, but it wasn’t just notable for Thomas Frank winning what was technically his first NLD as Spurs manager. He also came up against a man who was his captain just a few weeks ago.
Christian Nørgaard played 68 minutes for his new club Arsenal, having been such an integral part of Frank’s Brentford in recent years. Only Bryan Mbeumo (11,218) played more minutes for Frank in the Premier League than Nørgaard (10,171).
Nobody won possession as many times for Brentford as Nørgaard last season in the league (193), while only centre-back Nathan Collins (63.0%) won a higher percentage of aerial duels (minimum 14 aerial duels contested) than his 61.9%.
It was therefore a little surprising Spurs didn’t try to sign Frank’s compatriot, though perhaps the lure of Arsenal would have been too much in any case. Besides, in Rodrigo Bentancur, Pape Sarr, Yves Bissouma, Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray, Frank has inherited a talented midfield.
None of them necessarily look suited to playing the way Nørgaard did for the Dane’s Brentford side, though, which may well be where João Palhinha comes in.
The Portuguese powerhouse is reportedly on his way back to England. The man who would tackle a double-decker bus if he thought there was a football on it is seemingly returning to the Premier League to join Spurs on a season-long loan from Bayern Munich.
Palhinha made a name for himself in England with his dominant performances in Fulham’s midfield across two seasons between 2022 and 2024, putting up the sort of tackle numbers that made people wonder if he was programmed to do anything else.
In his first Premier League season (2022-23), Palhinha made 148 tackles, an astonishing 48 more than any other player in the division. He also competed in the second-most duels (487), winning 59.1% of them. He won 64.3% of his 112 aerial duels, with only 11 players (100+ aerial duels) winning a greater proportion, and 10 of them were centre-backs. Rodri (68.6% of 105) was the only midfielder to boast a better record.
Palhinha recorded even more tackles the following season (152) despite playing two games fewer (33) than in 2022-23 (35), once again comfortably making the most in the Premier League, 14 more than second-placed João Gomes of Wolves. It was the most tackles tallied by a single player in a Premier League season since N’Golo Kanté’s 175 for Leicester City in 2015-16.
He also competed in the eighth-most duels (425), winning 60.9% of them, including 56.9% of his 72 aerial duels.
With great tackling comes great responsibility, though, and Palhinha had to manage himself in quite a few Fulham games due to his propensity for accruing yellow cards. He received the most yellow cards in the Premier League in 2022-23 (14), equalling the record for most yellows in a PL season, and he nearly hit that mark again in 2023-24 (13). Notably, he was not sent off once, so he was able to avoid a second yellow on all 27 occasions across both campaigns, which does at least suggest some restraint.
His performances for Fulham earned him a move to Bayern last summer for around £47 million after the same transfer collapsed in 2023. But by the time he eventually got his dream switch to Bavaria, the coach who initially wanted him – Thomas Tuchel – had been jettisoned and replaced by Vincent Kompany.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, things haven’t worked out for Palhinha in Germany. He made only six starts in the Bundesliga last season, and 17 league appearances overall.
That therefore meant he couldn’t rack up as many tackles as he had at Fulham, though with Kompany’s Bayern built to dominate the ball, it’s not as if he had all that many opportunities to do so. He still averaged 2.7 tackles per 90, only bettered by one of his teammates in Sacha Boey (3.0 – minimum 500 minutes played).
He was also unable to avoid being sent off in the Bundesliga as he so skilfully managed in England, shown a straight red card in a shock 3-2 home defeat to Bochum in March.
It was clear Kompany wasn’t entirely sold on the 30-year-old even after the club spent so much money on him, though a muscle injury that kept him out for over two months in the middle of the season also didn’t help.
Arguably the main problem for him in Bavaria is one of the same issues Spurs fans have been discussing since links emerged: is Palhinha good enough in possession?
He completed 92.9% of his passes in the Bundesliga last season, with only four Bayern players boasting a higher percentage (minimum 500 passes attempted). That included a team-high 98.4% accuracy in his own half, a respectable 88.6% in the opposition half. However, he completed just 82.2% in the final third, which was lower than 11 of his teammates.
His numbers weren’t as high at Fulham, but then they weren’t as focused on keeping the ball as Bayern. Palhinha had an 82.9% pass completion rate in the 2022-23 Premier League season with the Cottagers, which went up very slightly to 83.0% the following campaign.
You always have to take those overall numbers with a pinch of salt given completing a two-yard backwards pass and completing a 70-yard pass that opens up the entire opposition are rather different, but it also might not even be that important. Frank’s Brentford finished in the top half last season but completed just 80.7% of their passes, with only five teams completing fewer. So, the Spurs boss didn’t seem to be too concerned with completing lots of passes at his former club, caring more about making them count.
That leads us to the big question being asked about Palhinha: can he be incisive with his passing and help his team to open up their opponents?
For this, we’ll look at progressive passes – these are completed open-play passes in the attacking two-thirds of the pitch that move the ball at least 25% closer to the goal.
Only 2.7% of Palhinha’s passes in the Bundesliga last season were progressive (15 of 551); no nominal midfielder who attempted at least 200 passes in the competition in 2024-25 had a smaller proportion of their passes be classed as ‘progressive’.
Perhaps a better comparison would therefore be with Nørgaard, who made 100 progressive passes from 1,418 in the league last season (7.1%), which suggests Palhinha may need to become more adventurous in his passing under Frank, as would any current Spurs midfielder expected to play in that role. That is assuming the Dane wants his new side to play similarly to his old one, which of course we still don’t know for certain.
Where Palhinha is like Nørgaard is in progressive carries, or a lack thereof. The Portugal international averaged only 3.1 progressive carries – movements with the ball that progress play at least five metres upfield – per 90 in the Bundesliga, which was fewer than all other Bayern and Spurs midfielders, but slightly more than Nørgaard (2.7).
It does seem like a no-lose deal for Spurs. They get a player who has Premier League and Champions League experience and can help to break up the opposition’s play in a way few others can. That will likely come in handy against better opponents, having someone who can disrupt opposition attacks regularly and provide more protection to a backline that suffered often last season.
João Palhinha looks like he’s coming back to the Premier League, so you’d better get those shin pads on, lads.