Omar Marmoush is reportedly close to joining Tottenham on loan with an obligation to buy from Manchester City. But why have Spurs turned to the versatile Egyptian forward?
Tottenham know all about it. For years, they struggled to find anyone to play the back-up striker role. Being behind Harry Kane in the pecking order, knowing chances to play will be slim, is not the most enticing assignment for many.
Manchester City are now facing a similar problem. Being the other striker to Erling Haaland is a very difficult role to shine in. Even Julián Alvarez, now one of the most sought-after forwards on the planet, had to leave the Etihad Stadium to reach the levels he has.
Six months after selling Alvarez to Atlético Madrid, City realised they needed to replace him. They turned to Omar Marmoush.
The Egyptian had been shining brightly at Eintracht Frankfurt, recording 15 goals and nine assists in 17 Bundesliga games in the first half of the 2024-25 season, and 20 goals and 13 assists from 26 games across all competitions.
He made a solid enough start for City, too, scoring eight times in 22 appearances in his first half-season, and 18 of those had been starts thanks to his impressive form and Haaland suffering a couple of injuries.
It took Marmoush five games to record his first goal involvement for City, but in fairness it was in the form of a hat-trick against Newcastle United.
In fact, it would be in their interest if Spurs are able to get Marmoush over the line and registered in time for the weekend’s game against the Magpies. He has scored seven goals in five games against Newcastle in all competitions for City, having not scored more than two against any other opponent since arriving in England.
His first full season did not really live up to that early promise, though. A knee injury suffered in September 2025 kept him out for over a month, while he also missed another nine games around the turn of the year due to the Africa Cup of Nations.
In total, Marmoush managed eight goals and three assists in 36 games last season, just 16 of which were starts.
And now, as happened with Alvarez, the time has come for Marmoush to depart City in search of regular starts, aiming to get back to the form that captured the attention of many prior to his move to the Etihad.
Funnily enough, that has led to a move to Tottenham, who now need alternatives to Dominic Solanke and Richarlison. With the greatest of respect, that’s an easier sell than deputising for Kane.
The same summer Kane left Spurs for Bayern Munich (2023), Marmoush signed for Eintracht on a free transfer from Wolfsburg, where he didn’t exactly have a record that suggested he was going to succeed as much as he did.
He scored just six goals in 48 games (18 starts) for Wolfsburg across four seasons, though he did also have loan spells with St. Pauli in the 2. Bundesliga, scoring seven times in 21 games (19 starts) in 2020-21, and at Stuttgart in the top flight, netting three goals in 21 appearances (19 starts) in 2021-22.
He really found his feet in Frankfurt under Dino Toppmöller, though. Marmoush scored 17 goals in 41 games during his first season for Eintracht, before his stunning half-season in 2024-25 prior to his move to City.
At the time he left for the Premier League, only compatriot Mohamed Salah (39) had more than Marmoush’s 33 goal involvements across all competitions in 2024-25 among players in Europe’s top five leagues.
Will Roberto De Zerbi be able to get that version of Marmoush back? Savinho has also made the journey from City to Spurs, and he showed promise on his debut cameo against Charlton Athletic in the EFL Cup on Wednesday, recording a goal and an assist.
You can see from Marmoush’s heat maps below how much his game changed in England. He was covering plenty of the pitch from left to right in the 2024-25 campaign at Eintracht, but last season for City he had the vast majority of his touches from the left.
It will be interesting to see how De Zerbi uses him. The Egyptian is surely being signed predominantly as a striker option, but that stunning form at Eintracht came when he was playing in a front two with Hugo Ekitiké, with Marmoush in the second striker role, floating around the pitch a lot more than the ‘No. 9’ Ekitiké.
De Zerbi could potentially look to play him in a similar partnership with Solanke or Richarlison, but the Italian usually prefers a single striker setup, so would Marmoush be able to play up front on his own?
He hasn’t done so all that often at club level. Even at City, he played in plenty of different positions, but his most common position in any given formation was in a front two (15% of mins).
Signing line-breaking-pass specialist centre-backs Jan Paul van Hecke and Marcos Senesi was a clear indication De Zerbi wants Spurs to get the ball from back to front quickly this season.
We even saw goalkeeper Antonín Kinsky playing a straight ball to the feet of Richarlison at the Gtech Community Stadium in Saturday’s 3-0 opening-day defeat. The Brazilian immediately lost the ball, though, allowing Brentford to counter and score their second goal through Vitaly Janelt.
Richarlison only received 11 passes all game as Spurs struggled to build anything, but it’s notable that five of those passes came from one of Kinsky (1), Van Hecke (2) and Senesi (2).
A progressive pass is an open-play pass in the attacking two-thirds of the pitch that moves the ball at least 25% closer to the goal (excluding crosses). Marmoush received 5.9 progressive passes per 90 in the Premier League last season, the most of any Man City player, so he is good at making himself available for ambitious balls forward.
The key will then be teammates getting around him, which didn’t happen with Richarlison, who didn’t really have anyone to offload the ball to.
But what else does Marmoush offer that Richarlison and Solanke may not?
Looking at their respective data from the Premier League last season, Marmoush had higher per-90 numbers than both for goal involvements (0.77), xG from open play (0.31), expected assists (0.1), shots (3.9), chances created (1.55), progressive carries (5.67), take-ons (3.7), and touches in the opposition’s box (6.8).
That was from just under 700 minutes, though, so a small-ish sample size, and was obviously for a Man City team that finished second rather than a Spurs team that came 17th.
He’s 27, so it’s a signing for now rather than the future, but Marmoush doesn’t actually have that many games in his legs for a player of his age. Since he played his first game in one of Europe’s top five leagues in the 2019-20 season, he has only made more than 20 starts in all competitions in two campaigns (37 in 2023-24 and 42 in 2024-25).
One thing he will have to learn how to do is score in stadiums other than the Etihad. Marmoush hit 10 Premier League goals for Man City, with every single one of them coming on home soil. He is yet to score at any other ground in 18 Premier League games.
It is a curious move for Spurs, but with regular starts and a more consistent role than he’s had at Man City, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Marmoush recaptures that late 2024 form.
Who knows? Maybe they’ll find it tricky to find a back-up to him in years to come.
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