This summer Tottenham Hotspur bought Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United in a deal that could be worth £100m ($133m) and Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United for £85m. In January, they saw off competition to sign Conor Gallagher from Atletico Madrid for £34m. Last summer they bought Xavi Simons — currently recovering from a knee injury — from RB Leipzig for £51.8m to play as the No 10.
A lot of money, then, has been thrown at the Tottenham midfield conundrum over the past year or so, not just in fees but in salaries to attract these players to the club.
And yet right now it feels as if perhaps the most important midfielder, the one who has to play, is someone who has been at the club far longer.
It was Rodrigo Bentancur who got the most fulsome praise from Roberto De Zerbi on Saturday evening after Spurs had emerged from the trip to Nottingham Forest with a 0-0 draw, their first point and first clean sheet of the league season. “Great game, great game,” De Zerbi said of the Uruguayan, who had just made his third consecutive start and given his best performance of the season.
Over the course of the afternoon, Bentancur had shown again that Tottenham do not have anyone quite like him in the middle of the pitch. His awareness, understanding and ability to read the game faster than anyone else, was integral to Spurs stopping Forest from attacking through the middle.
That special sense he has, that picture in his head, also makes Bentancur integral when Tottenham have the ball and are trying to move it forward. There is no one better at showing for the ball, receiving a pass to feet from the centre-backs and, under pressure, bouncing it first time out to a full-back. (Remember when Spurs went to Forest last season, Archie Gray took an extra touch in precisely that position, Ibrahim Sangare stole the ball and Forest went 1-0 up.)
The fascinating thing about Bentancur’s role right now is that at the start of the season fans might not have expected him to play such an important part. The expectation was that Tonali and Fernandes would be first choice in the middle of the pitch, with Gallagher likely to continue in the No 10 role he held at the end of last season. Spurs turned down big money for Lucas Bergvall this summer, but given that they decided to keep him, he was set for a prominent role too. James Maddison, who recovered enough from a knee injury to play at the end of last season, has also been knocking at the door.
But as De Zerbi has tried to find the right combination so far this season, he has turned to Bentancur three times out of four. At Brentford on the opening day, it was Tonali, Bergvall and Gallagher, but those three were unable to cope with the physicality of their hosts. It was only when Fernandes and Bentancur came on that Spurs got any sort of foothold, but they were already out of the game.
So when Spurs hosted Charlton Athletic in the League Cup, Bentancur came in, anchoring for Bergvall and Fernandes to get forward. And — against a much-changed Championship side — they comfortably won 5-1. Bentancur then kept his place for the Newcastle game, alongside Tonali and Fernandes, when Spurs started well but were unable to sustain it and were eventually picked off to lose 2-0. And then again on Saturday, with Tonali and Gallagher.
Of course, at this stage of the season it is only natural there will be some rotation, some experimentation, as De Zerbi tries out new players and different combinations, attempting to find the right balance in the middle of the pitch. This is a fairly new team after all. At the same time, no one is better suited to the anchoring job, the role that allows other players to shine, than Bentancur. It almost feels as if the formula is Bentancur plus two others, at least until they have more attacking options at No 10.
But maybe this should not be so much of a surprise. Bentancur has made himself one of the great survivors of this Spurs squad. Behind the unique Ben Davies, now into his 13th season at the club, Bentancur is the joint longest-serving outfield player. He arrived at the end of the January 2022 transfer window, Fabio Paratici picking him and Dejan Kulusevski up on the cheap from Juventus (Bentancur only cost £15m, Kulusevski joined on an 18-month loan that was made permanent in 2023).
We are not far from the fifth anniversary of Bentancur’s arrival, and over that time he has made 151 Spurs appearances. Remember that he started off as half of the two-man engine room for Antonio Conte, driving Spurs towards their last top-four finish in his first few months at the club. He missed most of 2023 with an anterior cruciate ligament injury, and when he came back, found himself playing a very different style under Ange Postecoglou. But he became an integral player again during Postecoglou’s second season, anchoring the team during the injury crisis, starting six of Spurs’ seven Europa League knockout games. He was as important as anyone in lifting the trophy in Bilbao, again showing the value of his experience and awareness in those huge games at the end of the season.
And even last year, Bentancur started the season playing alongside Joao Palhinha for Thomas Frank, with people wondering whether those two together could ever make the team progressive enough in the middle of the pitch. Bentancur missed three months in the middle of the season with a hamstring injury and yet when he returned, his value to the group was clearer than ever. And it was with Bentancur and Palhinha reunited in the middle for the final games that Spurs stayed up. The same nous and game intelligence that helped to lift the Europa League contributed to keeping Spurs in the Premier League in 2026.
There may always be midfield options who excite people more, who are more eye-catching or faster or more incisive. Yet Bentancur has found time and time again over the past five years that managers usually want him on the pitch. So many of his former team-mates have left the club in the intervening period and yet the 29-year-old remains, one of the last links to an era that has been moved away from at pace. Until anyone else can match his experience and football brain, he will remain as important as ever.