For much of the 2025/26 Premier League season, Tottenham Hotspur center midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur was a liability. He could not exert enough influence over matches as Spurs would get overrun and drop results, with the experienced member of the midfield unable to create or even just meaningfully progress the ball.
Young Archie Gray stepped in his shoes and was so much better, even standing out as the team's clear best player during their worst of the descent into the Premier League relegation places. But surprisingly, immediately after Bentancur returned from a few months out of action, new manager Roberto De Zerbi reinserted the Uruguayan international into the starting lineup.
Although Spurs fans were initially confused and a bit miffed by this decision, time has proven De Zerbi right for trusting the keys of the midfield to the more experienced player, regardless of how Bentancur struggled under Thomas Frank for much of the season.
Rodrigo Bentancur has stepped up
De Zerbi is trusting his veterans to get Tottenham Hotspur out of Premier League relegation, and, so far, that trust is paying off. And he has done wonders with the likes of Conor Gallagher and Rodrigo Bentancur, turning them into pillars of the team.
So for Tottenham fans who bristled at the idea of Bentancur starting over a more talented Archie Gray who also has much more future upside, Bentancur has forced them to admit a truth that may have been an inconvenient one to ponder at the time. But by some manner of his ability to calmly preside over the Spurs overall game play, this Tottenham team is demonstrably better with Bentancur a part of the starting XI.
At least in this form under Roberto De Zerbi, Bentancur is one of the most important players on Tottenham with an influence that is impossible to ignore. Tottenham fans would have been surprised to know even six months ago that Bentancur would later become this pivotal in a relegation fight - or maybe even that Spurs would be at serious risk of relegation in the first place - but by now this is a factoid that the Lilywhites have come to embrace.
Bentancur is finding open players, and he is being much more brave than he was for Tottenham at the beginning of the season when he was severely disappointing, almost trying to hide behind the others to avoid stepping up with responsibility. But now, Bentancur has stepped it up, and Spurs are so much better off for it.