Roberto De Zerbi didn’t send an emissary. He didn’t fire off a text and hope for the best. When Tottenham Hotspur decided they wanted Sandro Tonali — with Manchester City circling and Newcastle United demanding a nine-figure fee — De Zerbi got in his car and turned up at the player’s front door. This week, agent Giuseppe Riso finally revealed what happened inside that house — and it is the inside story of the transfer gamble on which Spurs’ entire season now rests.
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The house call: how De Zerbi won the Tonali race
Every great transfer has a sliding-doors moment. For Sandro Tonali’s £100m move to Tottenham, it came on an ordinary evening in Italy, when the doorbell rang and Roberto De Zerbi was standing on the step.
Speaking on the Italian podcast Colpi Da Maestro during the international break — comments relayed by TuttoMercatoWeb and reported by football.london on 4 October — agent Giuseppe Riso laid bare the personal diplomacy that decided the summer’s most intriguing midfield battle.
“It was a crazy move in terms of the noise, the numbers, and the responsibilities,” Riso admitted. “I explained things to Sandro, I made him think, and I took responsibility. It turned out to be the right choice, even from a personal perspective, even though cycles end and we decided to leave.”
Then came the detail that should terrify every rival sporting director in Europe: “After Newcastle, Tottenham showed they’re choosing differently; they’re courageous. Tottenham was reborn after the end of the season; Tottenham survived, and De Zerbi came to the house, telling him they needed him as a leader. The relationship with De Zerbi carried a lot of weight.”
Read that again. The manager of a club that had just finished 17th — a club that survived relegation by the skin of its teeth — walked into the home of one of Europe’s most coveted midfielders and told him: we need you as our leader. And it worked.
The courtship had been brewing for months. De Zerbi and Tonali share more than a nationality — both are sons of Brescia, the small Lombardy city where football is a religion. De Zerbi first sounded out the idea through a mutual friend, then called Tonali directly once survival was secured. Tonali rang back within ten minutes. Days later, De Zerbi flew to Italy and sat in Tonali’s living room to sell the project face to face.
“Brescia is so small,” Tonali himself later said of the connection. “We spoke about him, about his work, about the passion that he puts into every single moment. I spent three years with Eddie Howe and he was fantastic, especially for me. But now I’ve found a different gaffer who works a lot on the pitch, a lot with the tactics, a lot with the ball.”
The fee tells you how seriously Spurs took it: £92.5m plus £7.5m in add-ons, a club-record £100m package, and a six-year contract that makes the 26-year-old Italy international the highest earner in the squad. For a club that spent decades being outmuscled in the market by its Big Six rivals, this was a statement of violent intent.
Why Manchester City lost — and paid £116m for Anderson instead
Here’s the part of the story that should make Tottenham fans grin. Manchester City wanted Tonali too. Enzo Maresca’s side had the Italy international on their list as they reshaped their midfield — and Spurs beat them to him.
When asked about City’s interest, Riso was diplomatic but revealing: “Tottenham was reborn after the end of the season… De Zerbi came to the house.” The implication is clear. City had the prestige, the trophies, the Pep-less-but-still-mighty machine. Spurs had a manager willing to knock on a door.
City’s response was to go bigger, if not better. A couple of weeks after missing out on Tonali, they turned their attention to Elliot Anderson — and paid Nottingham Forest a staggering £116m for the 23-year-old. Two midfielders, two nine-figure deals, £216m spent between them. The summer’s engine-room arms race was the most expensive positional battle in Premier League history.
Which club got the better deal? The early evidence is deliciously ambiguous. Anderson has the dynamism and the Premier League-proven ball-carrying; Tonali has the metronomic passing range, the tactical intelligence and — crucially — a manager who has built his entire system around him.
Spurs’ summer, remember, was a revolution: more than €350m invested, with Tonali and Mateus Fernandes the headline arrivals — Fernandes himself prised away despite Manchester United’s interest. Riso’s verdict on the new regime: “Tottenham showed they’re choosing differently; they’re courageous.” For a fanbase raised on nearly-men and nearly-deals, courage is a currency that spends well.
The tactical fit: Tonali in De Zerbi’s 3-4-2-1
So what exactly did De Zerbi promise Tonali in that living room? The answer is written all over Spurs’ tactical blueprint — as we outlined in our five-point rescue plan for De Zerbi’s rock-bottom side, the Italian’s system lives or dies on its double pivot.
De Zerbi’s 3-4-2-1 demands two things from its deepest midfielders that almost no English midfielder can do simultaneously: receive the ball under a full press with your back to goal, and then break lines with the first pass. It is the most technically demanding role in his entire structure — the fulcrum on which the wide overloads, the third-man runs and the box midfield all turn.
Tonali is, on paper, the perfect prototype. At Newcastle he evolved from a pure regista into a complete modern midfielder: the tackling and interception numbers of a destroyer married to the progressive passing of a playmaker. He can sit as the single pivot’s screen, he can shuttle as the box-to-box runner, and — most importantly for De Zerbi — he is press-resistant. When opponents squeeze Spurs’ build-up, Tonali is the escape valve: one touch, one swivel, one diagonal into the half-space, and the press is dead.
The chemistry with the rest of the midfield is the fascinating subplot. De Zerbi needs a partner for Tonali who can do the dirty running while the Italian conducts — think of it as the Gravenberch role reimagined in navy and white. Get that pairing right, and Spurs suddenly have a midfield that can control games instead of chasing them. Get it wrong, and the £100m man is left doing two jobs at once, which is precisely how galáctico signings go to die.
There is also the leadership dimension, the word Riso kept returning to. “They needed him as a leader.” Spurs’ dressing room has been through the wringer: two 17th-place finishes, a relegation battle, a squad rebuilt in a single summer. Tonali arrives not as a luxury but as a load-bearing wall — the player De Zerbi points to when the press comes and the crowd groans. That is an enormous burden for a 26-year-old. It is also exactly the kind of responsibility the very best players crave.
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Newcastle’s regret: the project that never was
Spare a thought, too, for Newcastle United. They signed Tonali from AC Milan for £55m in July 2023, hailed him as the cornerstone of their new era, and watched him make more than 100 appearances in black and white. Three years later, they sold him for £100m — a handsome profit — and yet the exit still stings.
Riso’s explanation of the departure was brutally honest: “We weren’t able to achieve what Newcastle was meant to become at that time, so we decided to leave.” Back in June 2023, the same agent had called Newcastle “the perfect project” for his client. Something, somewhere, broke down between the vision and the reality.
You can read between the lines. Newcastle’s grand project — Champions League nights, title challenges, a new sporting dynasty — stalled. The PSR straitjacket bit, the squad planning wobbled, and a player who had given three prime years decided his ambition needed a different vehicle. The irony is exquisite: he chose the club that finished 17th.
But that is precisely Riso’s point. Newcastle offered the past; Tottenham, improbably, offered the future. “Tottenham was reborn after the end of the season,” he said. Reborn. From 17th place. It sounds absurd until you remember what De Zerbi did at Brighton, at Sassuolo, at Marseille — he builds belief as deliberately as he builds passing patterns. Tonali bought the belief. Now he has to justify the £100m.
What next: El Sackico and the great escape
The cruel truth is that for all the romance of the house call, Tonali’s Spurs career has begun in a nightmare. Five games, two points, rock bottom of the Premier League — the worst start in the club’s modern history. The 445-minute goal drought, the tactical confusion, the sack-race noise around De Zerbi himself: none of it was in the brochure Riso was sold.
But this is where the story could turn. Saturday’s trip to Old Trafford — ‘El Sackico’ against Michael Carrick’s Manchester United, as we detailed in our predicted lineups — is the single biggest game of Spurs’ season so far. Win, and the great escape has lift-off; lose, and the vultures circle De Zerbi in earnest.
Tonali will be at the heart of it. United’s midfield is there to be got at, and De Zerbi’s double pivot — with Tonali conducting — is Spurs’ best route to controlling a chaotic game. And beyond Saturday, the January window looms — with Spurs already in the scramble for Brighton’s Kaoru Mitoma — as the next test of whether this “courageous” new Tottenham is real or just a sales pitch that worked on one midfielder in one living room.
De Zerbi knocked on Tonali’s door because he believed one player could change a club’s destiny. The agent’s revelations this week — first picked up by Inside Futbol on 2 October and corroborated across the European press — confirm the gamble. Now comes the hard part: making a £100m house call look like money well spent. The escape starts at Old Trafford.
