Spurs have embarked on a spending spree which has blown their rivals away - but can they buy a ticket back to the top four in one transfer window?
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When the summer transfer window opened, it was widely assumed that Tottenham Hotspur would perform major surgery on their squad – but few expected that they would spend like the procedure was taking place in the United States and nobody had paid their insurance premiums.
July has scarcely started and Spurs have already splashed out an estimated £230m – as much as they spent across the whole of last season - to sign Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes and Jan Paul van Hecke, completely overhauling their recruitment policy shattering the club transfer record twice in the process. But why are Spurs spending so freely, and will it do them any good?
Why Spurs are spending so much money this summer
For years, Spurs had a reputation as being a team that ran a tight financial ship, nickel and diming the teams they were dealing with in order to get the best possible price and often preferring to save their cash and sign their second choice if a primary target proved to be too expensive. They spent far more than most teams, but by the standards of a supposed ‘big six’ side in the Premier League, they pulled their purse strings tight.
That was a policy driven by former chairman Daniel Levy, who ran the club for 24 years before he was ousted by the current ownership last September. With Levy gone, it’s quite clear that Spurs are now happy to splash the cash more freely.
Because Levy kept such a close eye on the club’s bank balance for so long, Spurs have plenty of breathing room with regards to the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules and the squad cost ratio regulations which will supplant them this summer. It could be argued that Levy’s transfer policy was responsible for the degradation of the squad, but it also gives Spurs the spending power to fix it.
That’s the fundamental aim, of course. A team which is expected to compete for the European placings has now spent two consecutive seasons flirting with the relegation zone, and those now in charge of transfers – primarily sporting director Johan Lange and chief executive Vinai Venkatesham, apparently with considerable input from head coach Roberto De Zerbi – are reversing course at breakneck speed in the hopes of building a squad that can compete at the right end of the table in the 2026/27 season.
This is not a reflection of a long-term plan, but of a decision to burn as much as possible to the ground and then to replant with mature trees rather than young saplings. Fernandes is only 21, of course, but both Tonali and Van Hecke are 26 and the free transfers that they’ve added on top (Marcos Senesi, Andrew Robertson and Martin Dúbravka) all have less football ahead of them than they do behind.
No move makes the short-termism of the current strategy clearer than the sale of the talented Luka Vušković, who joined Brighton & Hove Albion for £46m, a deal which smoothed the path to the signing of Van Hecke – Spurs have effectively traded a young player who could be worth much more one day for a favourite of the manager from his time at the Amex Stadium. If Spurs’ plan doesn’t come to fruition in the next couple of seasons, those deals could come to look exceptionally foolhardy.
De Zerbi is a key driving force and his fingerprints are all over the decisions being made – both on the Van Hecke trade and the decision to sign two new midfielders at immense cost, a reflection of the fact that the current crop of players lacks the box-to-box quality and particularly the defensive impact to be successful in the Italian’s demanding system. Only Rodrigo Bentancur really fit the bill.
The difference between what Spurs are doing and what other free-spending teams at the top of the Premier League’s rich list do every year, however, is that Spurs are consciously overpaying for players in order to wrap deals up quickly and blow potential competition out of the water.
Manchester United wanted Fernandes and might have bid for Tonali as well, and as they were able to offer Champions League football they would have had a distinct advantage in any negotiations – so Spurs simply came steaming over the top, offering £85m straight-up for Fernandes even though most clubs valued him at closer to £75m including add-ons, and spending £92.5m on Tonali, again several million more than clubs like United and Arsenal believed him to be worth.
They’ve done the same thing with salaries. Fernandes and Tonali were both offered significant sums to persuade them to sign rather than encouraging them to stall in the hopes that a side like Manchester United could up their bid, while the 32-year-old Robertson is reportedly now on £180,000 per week, £20,000 than he was getting at Liverpool.
It’s a high-risk strategy but reflects the likely reality that they wouldn’t be able to sign these players any other way – Spurs seem to have learned from a side like Newcastle, who have repeatedly missed out on key transfer targets to sides like Liverpool who have more financial firepower and are perceived to be a better bet for European football and winning titles going forward.
The last two years have robbed Spurs of much of the lustre they previously had as one of the Premier League’s richest sides, and now they are forced to overcompensate in order to build a team which can get them back in the big time. The question, of course, is whether it will work.
Will Spurs’ summer sending help them qualify for the Champions League again?
The £230m question is whether any of this will actually work. Even if they continue spending at their present rate – and recent reports suggest that Bournemouth’s Eli Junior Kroupi, another player who will probably cost over £80m, is also on their radar – they won’t be able to overhaul the entire squad. They will need to start getting stronger performances out of existing players as well.
De Zerbi’s reign started sufficiently well that Spurs were able to dodge relegation on the final day of the 2025/26 season, but they still have a lot of players who have struggled for form and only a few of the worst offenders are among the players most likely to leave this summer.
Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario is expected to leave after a disappointing year, Richarlison is likely to follow despite being Spurs’ leading goalscorer last season, and Cristian Romero is still presumed to be headed towards the exit door as well. None of those sales are problematic on paper given the circumstances, but neither can they really be described as the worst of the deadwood.
More concerning is the possibility that teams might come in for Micky van de Ven. The Dutchman is on the radar of several elite sides who have more urgent priorities than signing a centre-back, but could become the subject of interest as the window wears on. There is also continued doubt over the future of the gifted Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall. The squad will change considerably but not all of it will be for the better.
The good news is that the statistics strongly suggest that both Fernandes and Tonali should represent considerable upgrades in midfield compared to the lacklustre options currently on the books, while Van Hecke’s ball-playing skills and ability to venture forward decisively make him a much better fit for the centre-back role than a more traditional defender like Romero. De Zerbi’s tactics may be somewhat idiosyncratic, but he has a clear vision and is signing players who should – on paper – be able to fulfil it.
The early moves being made are high risk given the scale of the expenditure, but make logical sense. There is a long way to go, however, and there is still a glaring need for a reliable goalscorer, and worries over the fitness of a number of players who could play a key role – Xavi Simons is expected to be unavailable until the turn of the year, Mohammed Kudus and Dominic Solanke have endured serious injury issues, and it’s anyone’s guess as to whether Dejan Kulusevski will be able to get back to form after a desperately long spell on the sidelines.
Spurs are doing everything within their power to achieve a swift turnaround, but there are still an awful lot of hurdles to overcome, not all of which can possibly be solved in a single summer or by a large pile of money. How far does £230m (and probably quite a lot more) get you in just a couple of months? We’re about to find out, but there are some high hurdles for De Zerbi and his new signings to clear before Spurs can trouble the top four once more.