Why Tottenham's summer transfers could go down as one of the worst summer windows in Premier League history

Submitted by daniel on Mon, 24/08/2026 - 15:49

As promised, a summer defined by the unknowns of multiple clubs in transition needed just a single round of matches to reveal a series of cascading crises in waiting.

The one with the biggest potential is the one everybody should have seen coming, and not just because Tottenham Hotspur are Tottenham Hotspur. Their summer, capped by and encapsulated by the arrival of Omar Marmoush and Savinho this week, might end up being judged as one of the worst in Premier League history, on a par with the 2014 splurge that followed Gareth Bale’s departure to Real Madrid.

It took years to get over that summer, and while it is far too early to make a judgement on Tottenham’s 2026/27 prospects it is not reactionary to suggest this could be a hinge moment for the club.

Around £350 million has been spent so far and pretty much all of it has been spent badly. We didn’t need a dreadful, wafting, Spursy performance against Brentford on Saturday to reach that conclusion.

Sandro Tonali is a good player who could improve the Spurs midfield but £60 million should be the absolute limit on him. Jan Paul van Hecke has worked for Roberto de Zerbi before and has the experience needed to replace Christian Romero, but if you ever enter negotiations with Brighton and they offer a straight swap deal, get out. It’s a trap.

Those two might be (qualified) successes. The rest looks bleak.

Marmoush has had one six-month period looking elite - a half-season at Frankfurt that earned him a move to Manchester City out of nowhere – and otherwise has never quite settled in a single position. Savinho has flattered to deceive, drifting in and out of matches without showing enough edge, a description that also fits Mateus Fernandes, a player relegated in each of his last two Premier League seasons.

Andrew Robertson wasn’t good enough anymore to play for Liverpool, which makes him a baffling signing to replace the hugely talented Djed Spence, departing for Inter. Marcos Senesi has all the hallmarks of a decent player made to look brilliant by Andoni Iraola’s coaching, much like Dominic Solanke before him.

Over £360 million has been spent in a single summer on players who don’t look like upgrades on what came before, who mostly have a history of flakiness (read: Spursyness), and whose collective market value is at most £200 million, and that’s before you get to the extortionate wages most likely being offered in conjunction with high fees.

Speaking of high wages, De Zerbi is the highest-paid club manager in the world, a gamble taken by the club despite reservations regarding his tangible achievements and despite a frosty temperament that began to emerge in the aftermath of the thrashing by Brentford, when he repeatedly criticised his team’s inability to “fight in the right way”.

To be fair, he wasn’t wrong. Tottenham were half-hearted in the challenge, ambling in possession, loose with their passing. They meandered like an Igor Tudor team, they were outfought like an Ange Postecoglou team, they were directionless with the ball like a Thomas Frank team. Only a missed penalty prevented a 4-0 defeat. It could have been six or seven.

That can happen, especially after a summer of upheaval, as Aston Villa also found out yesterday. But unlike Villa, Tottenham badly need a strong start to launch the De Zerbi era proper and overcome the mental fragility that has seized the club over the past seasons. It will only take another couple of bad results for the atmosphere to turn and a fatalistic woe to grip the club again, as it did when Frank first came under pressure last autumn despite winning three of his first four league games.

The big difference for De Zerbi is a lack of Champions League football, giving him plenty of time to work on the tactical side of things in the week. For some that’s an advantage, for others it piles too much pressure on the weekend games. And ultimately, of course, it all comes down to the quality of the squad at De Zerbi’s disposal.

Three years of budget has been spent in one go. It simply has to work, yet all the signs tell us it won’t.

In their haste to prove that Daniel Levy’s departure signals a dramatic change in policy, and in a desperate bid to prove to supporters they can turn on the taps, Tottenham’s transfer committee have fallen for a common delusion: if you spend £100 million on a player then you must have just bought a ‘£100 million player’.

Tonali, Fernandes, Marmoush, and Savinho are second-rate players arriving for fees befitting the elite. It isn’t quite as bad as blowing all the Bale money on Roberto Soldado, Paulinho, and Erik Lamela, but if De Zerbi fails to survive the season – a common theme for him - then it might cause an even bigger rupture for Tottenham, one with aftershocks that last for years to come.