The New York Times

Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has said there is “firm backing” from co-owners, the Lewis family, but the club must be “cognizant of and aware of the financial fair play rules”.

In a video released on the club’s YouTube channel, Venkatesham reiterated that the Lewis family has no intention of selling the club amid speculation following the removal of Daniel Levy as club chairman last Thursday, and will invest to help the men’s and women’s teams achieve their ambitions to be “successful on the pitch”.

“(The Lewis family) are very, very passionate about Tottenham Hotspur and are ambitious for the club,” Venkatesham said. “When I talk about their ambition, their focus is on ensuring that everything we do across the complete breadth of the club really centres back and is focused on giving our men’s team and women’s team the best chance to be successful on the pitch over the long term.”

“I think it is very fair to say that we have firm backing from the Lewis family against our ambitions to be successful on the pitch, both on the men’s side and women’s side. They know that’s going to require investment, and we have their firm backing.”

Tottenham had a busy summer transfer window. They spent heavily on Mohammed Kudus from West Ham United for £55million and Xavi Simons for €60million (£51.8m; $70m) from RB Leipzig. They also signed Kota Takai from Japanese side Kawasaki Frontale for £5million ($6.8m), and Mathys Tel joined permanently for an initial €35m (£30m), after spending the second half of last season on loan from Bayern Munich.

Spurs went back to the German champions to sign Joao Palhinha on a season-long loan with an option to buy. While the club are not presently in danger of violating profit and sustainability regulations, Venkatesham outlined the club’s desire to stay clear of any sanctions by developing young players and “selling players at the right time”.

“I would also say, like all other 20 Premier League clubs, we also need to make sure that we are cognizant and aware of the FFP rules and that means we need to continue to grow our revenues,” he explained.

“We need to continue to develop players both from the academy and young players that we buy, we need to make sure that we’re selling players at the right time and we also need to make sure that every time we’re recruiting a player we’re making smart decisions both from a sporting and financial perspective.

“If you don’t do that, because of how the financial regulations work, you can find yourself in a position where you’ve got money to spend, but the regulations don’t allow you to spend it.”

Further to that, Venkatesham outlined that there is a focus on the club from the “next generation” of the Lewis family, including Joe Lewis’ children Vivienne and Charlie Lewis, as well as Vivienne’s son-in-law, Nick Beucher, the co-CEO of Tavistock Group, the investment company based in the Bahamas founded by Joe Lewis.

He also clarified the role of former banker Peter Charrington who has stepped into the role of “non-executive chairman” following Levy’s departure after being appointed as a non-executive director in March.

“It’s probably important to say that he’s going to be doing a different role to the one Daniel did,” Venkatesham said. “Daniel was executive chairman, that meant Daniel was full-time and involved in the club on a day-to-day basis. Peter’s role is non-executive chairman, and that means he won’t be involved with the club on a full-time basis and he won’t be involved on a day-to-day basis.

“His model is all around empowerment. He’ll be empowering us on the ground to get on with things but of course he will be leading the board and will be a very important part of the club going forward.”

(Photo: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Welcome to the 14th and final edition of The Athletic’s Transfer DealSheet for the summer 2025 transfer window.

Our team of dedicated writers, including David Ornstein, have taken you inside the market all window long and explained the deals that were being worked on. The transfer window is now closed, having shut down just under a week ago at 7pm BST on September 1.

The information found within this article has been gathered according to The Athletic’s sourcing guidelines. Unless stated, our reporters have spoken to more than one person briefed on each deal before offering the clubs involved the opportunity to comment. Their responses, when they were given, have been included.

We aim to bring you analysis you can trust about what is happening at Europe’s leading clubs and the latest information we’re hearing from across the market. This year, The Athletic’s football finance writer, Chris Weatherspoon, will be adding to our analysis of the transfer market.

Last week, we looked at David Ornstein’s Ones To Watch over the rest of the window. This week, we look at the Premier League’s big spenders and sellers, how the English top flight dominated the global market and review individual club windows, while looking ahead to what might be needed in January.

This article is long but detailed, so enjoy it all — or search for the club or player you want to read about.

Who were the Premier League’s big spenders and big sellers?

Liverpool’s last-minute-but-on-the-cards-for-two-months deal to sign Alexander Isak from Newcastle United confirmed what had long been clear: the biggest spenders this summer were the reigning Premier League champions.

The Anfield club’s £400million-plus outlay was not only a club record but a world one. The previous high for a single window was the £398m spent by Chelsea in 2023, and though the latter’s spending over the course of a season then might still outstrip Liverpool’s (Chelsea went big that January too), there’s no denying the sums dispensed from Merseyside have been huge.

Liverpool weren’t the highest spenders on a net basis. That accolade fell to Arsenal, who dropped over £250m on new players then struggled to shift unwanted ones. That Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, sold eight years ago, remains their highest ever sale is an indictment of their ability to sell well.

Other clubs had no such trouble. At Chelsea, £294m in sales translated to the second-highest-ever proceeds in a single season, even with the winter window to come. Sell in that window too and they may surpass the £325m mark set by Monaco in 2018-19.

Bournemouth went beyond £200m in sales as well, and, in all, six more clubs topped £100m in proceeds. As wages and transfer amortisation bills continue to rise, clubs are turning to player sales to reduce losses. For all the talk of over £3billion in spending being a record, so too was the £1.8bn clubs recouped.

Notable too was the spending by the newly-promoted trio. Sunderland set a record for a promoted side, but between them, the play-off winners, Leeds United and Burnley paid out over £360m on new players. That was around £80m more than 2024’s new boys and £200m more than Burnley, Sheffield United and Luton Town spent two years ago.

Each of the last six promoted sides have gone straight back down. This year’s group have gone big to avoid the same fate. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen.

Chris Weatherspoon

Arsenal

Was this window a success or a failure?

It takes time to evaluate a transfer window: a summer that looks good on paper can be disastrous on the pitch.

On the surface, this looks like a really strong summer’s recruitment from Arsenal. Martin Zubimendi, Viktor Gyokeres, Eberechi Eze and Piero Hincapie are all established elite players with the potential to improve the starting XI. The likes of Kepa Arrizabalaga, Christian Norgaard, Noni Madueke and Cristhian Mosquera add another layer of depth to the squad.

Arsenal will be disappointed, however, with their inability to balance the books with more high-value sales. They failed to find permanent buyers for the likes of Oleksandr Zinchenko, Karl Hein, Reiss Nelson and Fabio Vieira, while Albert Sambi Lokonga joined Hamburg for an initial fee of less than €300,000.

Will Arteta be happy?

Yes. The greatest value a sporting director can offer a manager is delivering the players he demands. Eight new signings suggest Mikel Arteta will be delighted with Andrea Berta’s first few months in the job.

Arteta now has the depth he needs to launch an assault on major silverware. The onus is on the manager to deliver.

What will be the priority for January?

Arsenal have such depth throughout the squad that it’s difficult to see an obvious need in January. Arsenal tend to use that window for remedial business to address issues caused by injuries — if at all.

They might look to let one or two leave in January: if Gabriel Jesus can prove his fitness by then, he’s one who could be earmarked for a sale.

Will there be money to spend in that window?

After a net spend in excess of £250m, quite possibly not. It remains to be seen how this summer’s spending spree will impact Arsenal in future windows.

Arsenal went big this summer. If they want to continue investing at that kind of level, they’ll need to improve their profits from player trading.

James McNicholas

Chelsea

Was this window a success or a failure?

It has to be considered a success overall. Obviously, results over the season will provide the ultimate answer, but Chelsea have addressed a lot of issues that needed to be looked at, both ins and outs.

The squad does look deeper. Dario Essugo and Andrey Santos (following his return from Strasbourg on loan) provide more options in midfield. The wide positions have been refreshed with the arrivals of Estevao Willian, one of the rising stars of the game, plus Jamie Gittens and Alejandro Garnacho. Up front, Joao Pedro has got off to a tremendous start, and Liam Delap, before his injury, gave Chelsea a much-needed physical edge.

Chelsea have also provided necessary cover for Marc Cucurella by acquiring Jorrel Hato from Ajax, and believe attacking midfielder Facundo Buonanotte can make a positive contribution following his loan move from Brighton & Hove Albion.

Yes, injuries to two key players in Levi Colwill and Delap are a major blow, and the goalkeeping position is not as strong as title contenders Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester City.

But Chelsea have also offloaded a lot of players they no longer wanted or were looking to leave like Christopher Nkunku, Joao Felix and Carney Chukwuemeka. Not only that, they have generated more revenue in outgoings than they have spent, a remarkable feat which will help them comply with financial rules set by the Premier League and UEFA.

Will Maresca be happy?

Talk to any manager and they will always want more. On taking the job last year, Enzo Maresca knew that his say in transfers at Stamford Bridge would be limited and that his main task was to concentrate on coaching the team.

Maresca seemed to imply after Colwill’s injury in pre-season that he would like another defender, only to clarify those comments in rather tense fashion a few days later. Last week, the Italian insisted he has been ‘in love’ with the squad from day one, and really, he should be. There are a lot of coaches who would want to work with the talent he has at his disposal.

What will be the priority for January?

Centre back is an area to keep an eye on if they struggle without Colwill, who is out for most of the season with an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. In saying that, Chelsea will be reluctant to block the pathways of Mamadou Sarr (on loan at Strasbourg) and Aaron Anselmino (on loan at Borussia Dortmund). It is more likely one of them will be recalled rather than a new addition be added.

Chelsea are always on the lookout for the right player at the right price. They have also shown they like to buy talent for the future and let them continue to develop at their current club or elsewhere before officially joining up. Yet it should be noted that their business in the last two January windows has been limited, so it might take something drastic to happen for that trend to change.

Will there be money to spend in that window?

There are still funds available for them to do something should they need to. Chelsea provided a clue in that regard by lodging a €40m bid for Barcelona midfielder Fermin Lopez a few days before the deadline and opted not to pursue it. That sum was not spent elsewhere.

Simon Johnson

Liverpool

Was this window a success or a failure?

Without doubt, a massive success. The club signed world-class players in key positions to automatically make the squad stronger.

With the additions of Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz, and Hugo Ekitike, they now boast one of the most formidable forward lines in the world — each player not only a threat on the pitch but also a valuable asset with significant potential to grow in value

Will Slot be happy?

There will be some disappointment that a deal for Crystal Palace defender Marc Guehi couldn’t be finalised, as his arrival would have capped off a near-perfect transfer window.

Deep down, though, Slot will be licking his lips at the prospect of building on a perfect start to the season with a star-studded group at his disposal. He’s blessed with a wealth of attacking talent, a multi-functioning midfield and strong, experienced defensive players in centre-backs Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate, and goalkeeper Alisson. Even with injuries, Liverpool should be well covered.

What will be the priority for January?

Given how close Guehi was to signing, it would be no surprise if Liverpool open up talks again in the winter. The transfer fee will be reduced as he’ll be closer to the end of his contract, so that may appeal. The other option is to hold out and try to sign him on a free next summer.

Elsewhere, there should be no great need to recruit in January after this summer’s changes.

Will there be money to spend in that window?

Owners Fenway Sports Group will always remain flexible to changes or market opportunities.

Gregg Evans

Manchester City

Was this window a success or a failure?

Manchester City ticked a lot of boxes. They secured Ederson’s long-term successor(s), brought in Rayan Ait-Nouri to fill the problematic left-back position, found a regen of 2021 Ilkay Gundogan in Tijjani Reijnders and brought in the maverick that is Rayan Cherki to help ease the loss of Kevin De Bruyne.

At a net spend of around £110m, which lowered the average age of a squad nearing 30 to 25.6, the window was a success in terms of long-term planning.

The one area City did not address was at right-back. Rico Lewis and Matheus Nunes are imperfect sticking plasters on a problem that requires a permanent fix.

In their last two losses, it looks like that oversight could come back to bite. How much so will go a long way to dictating how successful this window has been or not.

Will Guardiola be happy?

Pep Guardiola is a tactile man who does not hide his expressive nature when speaking to his players.

So, with a bloated squad that was causing him a great deal of stress, it is not hard to imagine him lovingly slapping the faces of the senior players as a thank you to the players who eventually decided to leave the club on the final day of the window.

The exits of Ederson, Gundogan and Manuel Akanji chopped a sizeable amount off the wage bill, but it also made his life a lot easier when it comes to selection.

With Jack Grealish, Vitor Reis and Claudio Echeverri also leaving on loan, he has a much more manageable number to keep happy, which, in turn, should make him happy.

What will be the priority for January?

A lot will depend on whether Gianluigi Donnarumma can help settle City’s defence. If not, then a right-back may be on the shopping list.

City are not short of options in other areas, but if Guardiola cannot get Jeremy Doku, Savinho and Oscar Bobb delivering the goals and assists he needs from his wingers, then there may be a need to freshen the supply to Erling Haaland.

Will there be money to spend in that window?

City spent heavily in January and followed that up with a substantial, if not mammoth, net spend this summer.

The departure of so many high earners will also have helped reduce the wage bill, but City’s two-part rebuild looks to have been more or less completed, barring one or two additions if injuries strike.

Jordan Campbell

Manchester United

Was this window a success or a failure?

United are happy with their business. You would expect them to be, of course, but the early signs are that Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo will improve an attack that scored just 44 goals in the Premier League last season — United’s lowest tally of the post-1992 era.

Benjamin Sesko is yet to start in the league, but Ruben Amorim has spoken of him leading United’s line for years to come. And while the deadline day arrival of 23-year-old goalkeeper Senne Lammens is another work in progress, he potentially addresses a problem position. Speaking of which, The Athletic reported on Sunday that Andre Onana had agreed to join Trabzonspor on a season-long loan. Sources close to the player say he will earn almost double his current salary at the Turkish club.

United also waved goodbye to four members of their five-man ‘bomb squad’ — Marcus Rashford, Garnacho, Jadon Sancho and Antony. Ruthlessly exiling those players sent a clear message about the importance of squad harmony, but arguably handed the leverage in negotiations to buying clubs, driving down their prices and delaying their departures.

Garnacho’s £40m sale to Chelsea broke records for a United academy player, but could surely have been higher had United not clearly needed to get rid. Antony’s €25m sale was also a little on the low side, given his performances on loan at Real Betis, while Rashford and Sancho only departed on loan.

And when all was said and done, not every problem was addressed: United did not reinforce their midfield, despite it being a position they planned to strengthen.

Will Amorim be happy?

Amorim has only spoken positively about United’s business. While he has not yet had a chance to comment about Lammens’ arrival, he has already waxed lyrical about Cunha and Mbeumo’s impact on the pitch and around the training ground, and Sesko’s work ethic and potential.

Whether Amorim starts Lammens in next Sunday’s Manchester derby will be interesting. His goalkeeper of choice this summer, at least initially, was Aston Villa’s Emiliano Martinez — a more expensive option than Lammens, but one with proven leadership qualities and experience at the very highest level.

Amorim also wanted to add a dynamic, athletic midfielder to the squad. Other positions were ultimately prioritised. When asked about a potential midfield signing before the opening defeat by Arsenal, Amorim said: “I’m really happy with our players. They’re working well; we have different players for that position. We are prepared to win any game with our players.”

What will be the priority for January?

Midfield is the glaringly obvious choice, although whether that is still too early for United to revive their pursuit of Brighton’s Carlos Baleba remains to be seen.

United attempted to steal a march on rivals for Baleba by holding talks via intermediaries last month, before Brighton made clear in direct club-to-club talks that they plan to keep the 21-year-old for another season, at least.

If that stance holds into January and beyond, and United’s midfield issues cannot be ignored, they may have to choose between waiting for their dream target in Baleba or looking elsewhere.

Will there be money to spend in that window?

There was not supposed to be much money to spend this window, never mind the next. But United’s initial spend on incomings over the past three summers had always landed between £175m and £210m, and this year they spent even more: committing to pay £215.8m in initial fees.

United said they were likely to rely on sales to fund further spending after Cunha and Mbeumo’s arrivals, but then paid an initial €75.5m to sign Sesko, weeks before closing on their first permanent sale.

Mid-summer changes to United’s revolving credit facility indicated a switch in strategy, and there was a more aggressive approach in the market following a summit in Iceland between Sir Jim Ratcliffe, chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox.

As a New York Stock Exchange-listed plc, United typically release their full-year financial results for the previous season in September. Those figures should tell us, or at least offer clues, as to how the summer’s transfer business was paid for, and whether more spending will be possible come January.

Mark Critchley and Laurie Whitwell

Why are United letting Onana go out on loan?

United did not intend to sign a goalkeeper when the transfer window opened but circumstances changed when Onana came back for pre-season. He reported an issue with his hamstring and this left staff questioning what shape he was in.

For Ruben Amorim, the setback left a lasting impression, with Altay Bayindir selected in the first three Premier League games.

Onana came back to Carrington wanting a new contract — he has been of that view since receiving the standard 25 per cent cut for non-qualification to the Champions League — a stance that did not go down well with Amorim. Yet United made no efforts to sell him. Monaco were the only club to register a real interest but they were informed his price was a minimum £30m. Monaco declined to go further.

Following the Fulham game on August 24, his representatives again checked if United wished for them to seek exit options but they were told not to, and that the player remained a part of Amorim’s plans. By that point though, United had activated on signing Senne Lammens. Despite Lammens being expected to compete for the No 1 spot, Onana was said to have backed himself.

Talks between United and Onana’s representatives after Lammens joined made clear to the player he would be welcome to search for options of more guaranteed game-time. He was also told United would be happy to keep him. Onana has now agreed to Trabzonspor’s offer.

Laurie Whitwell

Why has it not worked out for Onana at Old Trafford?

When Manchester United signed Onana in 2023, it was supposed to represent a step change at the club. After more than a decade of David de Gea, they were looking to modernise. Out went a goalkeeper defined by his reflexes and shot-stopping heroics and in came one to reshape the way United would both defend and attack.

GO DEEPER

Onana's Manchester United loan exit says as much about the club as it does about the player

But above all they needed calm and authority, a goalkeeper who could impose stability regardless of the circumstances. Onana, for all his talent, struggled to be that figure. At United he often reflected the mood around him rather than steadying it, and in a club where turbulence has been the defining feature for so long, that was always going to be a difficult mix.

What began as a bold shift now ends as another reminder of where United are at as a club. For Onana, this spell will be remembered less for his ability than for the gap between promise and reality. For United, the search continues for a goalkeeper who can provide the stability they so clearly lack, with Lammens tasked with offering what Onana could not.

Matt Pyzdrowski

Newcastle United

Was this window a success or a failure?

What a question that is. There is no short answer and it depends which way you look at it.

In one sense, Newcastle suffered the biggest failure of all, losing their best player on deadline day for lower than £150m and after a summer of insisting he was “not for sale”. The collateral damage caused by that saga has affected Newcastle’s early-season performances, depriving them of a senior centre-forward for the opening three games and generally generating toxicity.

The failure to land many of their key targets — Mbeumo, Joao Pedro, James Trafford, Ekitike and Sesko among them — ensured it was a chastening start for the interim transfer team, led by Andy Howe, the assistant head of recruitment, following Paul Mitchell’s exit as sporting director on June 30.

Yet, following that bruising beginning, Newcastle made significant strides in the market and ended up strengthening every position they had aimed to pre-window. Anthony Elanga and Malick Thiaw augment long-term problem positions at right-winger and right-sided centre-back, Jacob Ramsey is deemed an upgrade on Sean Longstaff in midfield, Aaron Ramsdale provides greater competition for Nick Pope than Martin Dubravka (and buys Newcastle time to determine what to do in the long run in the goalkeeper department), while Nick Woltemade is an exciting prospect, and Yoane Wissa is proven in the Premier League.

Admittedly, Newcastle have been deprived of Isak’s X-factor up front, while their £241m outlay is the most they have ever spent in a single window, and that figure was so high due to inflated fees being paid (especially the £50m-plus invested in Wissa, who Newcastle initially bid £25m for in July).

Even so, the £125m British-record fee received for Isak (which the club insist is actually worth £130m to them due to solidarity payments being waived) is an astronomical fee and should alleviate any concerns about the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules for several windows to come.

A grade of B- probably feels fair. The squad is undoubtedly better, the first XI is probably not, and the club were made to look weak over the Isak affair.

Will Howe be happy?

Largely, yes. Eddie Howe is never truly satisfied and is always striving for more, but given the early-window issues, he will be relieved that he has a squad which looks far better set to compete across four fronts than the last time Newcastle were in the Champions League two years ago.

In just about every position, Howe now has options and genuine competition. He has players who offer versatility and tactical flexibility, meaning he can change his system more easily between matches and even in-game.

Even so, he will rue the loss of Isak’s world-class abilities up front.

Wissa and Woltemade are an exciting combination and should, theoretically, provide greater depth than the perennially injured Callum Wilson was able to do last season. But Woltemade may need time to acclimatise to the Premier League, and without Isak, there are those inside the club who accept their ceiling as a side is perhaps lower. They still boast real quality and can reach an elite level as a team, but probably not the heights they could when Isak was in the XI.

What will be the priority for January?

Newcastle will conduct a thorough review of the summer, as they do following every window, and the expected arrival of Ross Wilson as sporting director means that the club will hopefully navigate the mid-season trading period with executive leadership in place (following David Hopkinson’s confirmation as CEO).

Only then will they determine what positions, if any, they want to bolster in January. Interestingly, however, Newcastle and Howe have been keen to ensure there is the capacity to augment the squad mid-season, following two successive seasons in which they have been unable to do so.

To be able to compete in the Champions League latter stages, should they get there, Newcastle may require an injection of quality at the start of 2026.

Right now, midfield, where Joe Willock’s long-term future is uncertain, and up front remain areas which could be improved upon. Wissa and Woltemade were late-window signings, but another striker or versatile forward of greater quality than Will Osula would be welcome, as too would a creative midfielder.

Will there be money to spend in that window?

Yes, absolutely

Even if many Newcastle fans may never want to hear the name ‘Alexander Isak’ again, the Sweden international has left an inadvertent financial gift for his former club.

Yes, Newcastle may have already spent some of the Isak profits during the final throes of the summer window but, once Real Sociedad’s 10 per cent sell-on clause and the roughly £30m in amortised costs are paid off, the club still made more than £80m from his sale to Liverpool.

Given that can be banked in the accounts immediately, whereas the cost of incomings can be spread over the length of their contract (for example, Woltemade’s £69m fee goes down as a £13.8m cost per year over the next five seasons), Newcastle have transformed their PSR position.

Newcastle prefer to do the majority of their business during summer windows, so do not expect vast investment in January necessarily, but they do have the capacity to spend.

Chris Waugh

Tottenham Hotspur

Was this window a success or a failure?

In theory, Spurs have a much better squad than this time a year ago. It was sad waving goodbye to Son Heung-min, who joined Los Angeles FC after a decade in north London, but Mohammed Kudus, Xavi Simons, Joao Palhinha and Randal Kolo Muani will inject serious quality into the starting 11. In previous windows, Spurs have been accused of prioritising young prospects over first-teamers. This time, they have brought in players for now.

The problem is that Spurs missed out on Morgan Gibbs-White and Eze. Gibbs-White was keen on joining Spurs but ended up signing a new contract with Nottingham Forest, while Eze rejected them in favour of their north London rivals Arsenal. It was a huge blow to miss out on two of their top targets in attacking midfield, especially because James Maddison suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury during their pre-season tour of Hong Kong and South Korea. It remains to be seen if Simons can fill that creative void in midfield.

Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski are both set to miss a significant chunk of the season, while Dominic Solanke’s ankle injury is another cause for concern. With Solanke, Maddison and Kulusevski on the treatment table, Tottenham’s new head coach Thomas Frank has to cope without three of his best attacking talents. The deadline day signing of Kolo Muani was a shrewd move to give him another option.

Will Frank be happy?

Two of the summer signings have already clearly elevated the first team. Palhinha’s performances against Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City were exceptional. Frank has a disciplined defensive midfielder he can rely on. Kudus offers Spurs something different in attack. Gibbs-White would have been perfect for Frank’s plans, but Simons is a thrilling talent with a high ceiling.

However, their best piece of business was convincing Cristian Romero to sign a new long-term contract. The Argentina international was the subject of interest from Atletico Madrid, but he will now spend his peak years with Spurs. Had Romero not signed a new deal, this whole season would have been dominated by talk about his future and what would happen in summer 2026 when he had one year left. Spurs fans can now relax about that issue.

What will the priority be in January?

There are question marks over Tottenham’s strength in depth in defence. Tottenham collapsed last season when Romero and Mickey van de Ven spent months out injured. Ideally, they would have more cover this year in case those two get injured again. Kevin Danso has proven himself, but Radu Dragusin is still recovering from an ACL injury and new signing Kota Takai has been struggling with a foot issue.

Following Luka Vuskovic’s loan move to Hamburg, Spurs only have three fit senior centre-backs right now. They looked at adding a left-sided centre-back this summer but could not find exactly the right player on the market.

Facing another busy season competing on multiple fronts, Spurs might need to sign a proven centre-back in January to help.

Will there be money to spend in that window?

Spurs have spent over £150m this summer, but the most significant sale was Son’s move to LAFC for an MLS record fee of $26.5m. They offloaded Bryan Gil to Girona for €10m, but failed to sell Yves Bissouma. The Mali international has attracted interest from Turkey, and their transfer window does not close until September 12, so there is still time.

It is frustrating that Manor Solomon only joined Villarreal on loan after impressing with Leeds United in the Championship last season. Solomon’s value might not be as high as it was in this window next summer.

Ideally, they would have raised more money, but they should still be able to conduct business in January if they have an urgent need.

Jay Harris and Jack Pitt-Brooke

Barcelona

Was this window a success or a failure?

It was definitely closer to a success.

Sporting director Deco and coach Hansi Flick bolstered both departments they wanted to at the start of the window: goalkeeper with the arrival of Joan Garcia from Espanyol and attack with Marcus Rashford. It must be said that the Manchester United loanee was not the club’s top priority, with Nico Williams and Luis Diaz initially preferred.

Barca also re-signed Wojciech Szczesny, a personal request from Flick given the Polish ‘keeper’s positive dressing-room influence, and secured the promising young winger Roony Bardghji from Copenhagen.

The sour note was Inigo Martinez’s exit to Saudi Pro League side Al Nassr. It was unexpected and meant Flick lost a fundamental figure in his defensive structure. Barca were unable to replace him with a new signing given they are still spending above their La Liga-imposed salary limit.

Will Flick be happy?

He should be. Garcia’s signing was met with total consensus across the club, and Flick was one of the biggest advocates for Rashford’s move to Barca.

The start of the season has not been perfect, with Flick’s team dropping points against Rayo Vallecano on Sunday and the German admitting he is not happy with his team’s performances so far. But that’s something Flick will hope to fix with his man-management and doesn’t relate to any complaints with the transfer window.

What will be the priority for January?

If things go to plan, Barca will not have any priorities in January as they won’t need to sign anyone. Unless a big injury happens or an outstanding market opportunity arises, don’t expect the Catalans to do any incoming business midway through the season.

But Deco will possibly be monitoring the centre-back position at Barca. With Martinez gone, it’s time for Ronald Araujo or Andreas Christensen to step up their game if Barca are to fight for all trophies this season. It seems likely Christensen will leave for free next summer at the end of his contract, while Araujo experienced a hugely inconsistent season last term.

Will there be money to spend in that window?

Not much, if any.

We have always reported that Barcelona’s main problem is not how much money they have to spend, but rather the salary limit not allowing them to register new players.

Any money they can avoid spending is good news for the club’s financial department.

Pol Ballus

Real Madrid

Was this window a success or a failure?

A success.

After a season in which they did not win any of the three major titles (La Liga, the Copa del Rey or the Champions League), Real Madrid managed to carry out a major and much-needed rebuild.

That started with Xabi Alonso replacing Carlo Ancelotti — and Alonso had a significant say in signings, unlike his predecessor. The club invested around €180million on four new players: Trent Alexander-Arnold from Liverpool (€10m), Dean Huijsen from Bournemouth (€58m), Alvaro Carreras from Benfica (€50m), and Franco Mastantuono from Argentine side River Plate (€63.2m).

The first three have helped shape a new-look defence, which had been identified as a necessary area of improvement since last summer. And the 18-year-old Mastantuono has already brought fresh ideas to Madrid’s attack.

While Alexander-Arnold’s signing had been pursued by the club since last year, Alonso’s conviction and insistence were key in landing Huijsen, Carreras and Mastantuono.

Will Alonso be happy?

He is, although ideally Alonso would have liked more reinforcements.

Sources close to Alonso suggested to The Athletic that two more signings were necessary, although one of those was if Rodrygo had left.

The difficulty in getting rid of players other than those whose contracts expired this summer (Luka Modric, Lucas Vazquez and Jesus Vallejo) was a significant obstacle. And with the 25-player limit on La Liga squads — even though Mastantuono was registered with the Real Madrid Castilla reserve team in case of a new arrival — Madrid’s room for more incoming players was minimal.

In the final weeks of the window, Alonso said, “We have to be ready in case there are changes”, but these did not happen. Dani Ceballos could have left last week, but he did not reach an agreement on personal terms with Marseille.

What will be the priority for January?

There won’t be one.

Madrid do not tend to use that January transfer window, and their last first-team signing in that month was Brahim Diaz in 2019. They made that move because Brahim’s contract with Manchester City was ending that June, so they wanted to act to secure the talented forward, with the concern being he might move elsewhere or renew at City if they did not act fast.

At the start of 2025, they were prepared to make an exception for Alexander-Arnold, but they were met with a strong refusal from Liverpool to sell.

But it is worth paying attention to any departures in January. While the board are not keen on losing players during the season, several members of the first team could review their situation to see if they can find a club where they will get more playing time. One example is Endrick, the young Brazilian striker who sees the 2026 World Cup as one of his major goals.

Will there be money to spend in that window?

Yes. Real Madrid have healthy finances, posting positive results even during the pandemic, and could afford to sign players. But, as mentioned above, it is unlikely given their stance on the window.

Mario Cortegana

What did the summer market tell us about Premier League dominance?

The Premier League’s dominance in the transfer market has long been known, but never starker than in the period just closed. For the first time in a summer transfer window, spending on new signings by England’s top 20 clubs outstripped that of those in the other four big leagues — Serie A, La Liga, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 — combined.

In all, Premier League clubs spent €3.6bn gross, against €3.4bn by the 76 clubs populating Europe’s other big leagues. On a net basis, Premier League clubs spent £1.5bn; the other four recorded income of €414m.

While we still refer to the collective as a ‘Big Five’, the moniker is increasingly strained. At one end, Ligue 1’s financial troubles are legion. At the other end, the Premier League is steaming beyond its peers; a super league in all but name.

That might be good for the clubs within and those with a vested interest in the division, but it poses wider problems. UEFA’s tightened financial rules seek to mitigate such dominance but remain largely linked to revenue — a metric where English clubs naturally lead the way.

Even as two of those clubs now operate under Settlement Agreements with the European governing body, this summer’s activity shows few signs of the Premier League juggernaut slowing. Nine of its members will play in Europe this season, nearly half the division.

Premier League spending makes immediate headlines and generates the eyeballs key to growth, but the effect on the wider game will take longer to play out. It is unlikely to be pretty for many beyond English shores.

Chris Weatherspoon

(Top image — Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Justin Setterfield; Image Photo Agency; Nikki Dyer – LFC/Liverpool FC; Getty Images)

Six months ago, no Tottenham Hotspur fan, unless they had a particular interest in wealth management, would be able to tell you who Peter Charrington was.

But after a dramatic week, Charrington is the name on everyone’s lips. On Thursday afternoon, he stepped into the role of non-executive chairman. It was the start of a new era at Spurs.

Everyone knows why Thursday was so significant. It marked the end of Daniel Levy’s time at Tottenham, after more than 24 years steering the ship in his own particular way. Levy was such a dominant figure at Spurs that it will take everyone some time to get used to his absence. When Spurs play at West Ham United next weekend (September 13), it will be surreal not to see him in the directors’ box watching on. No one can say with certainty how this will impact the atmosphere when Spurs host Villarreal in the Champions League a few days later.

It is safe to assume that Charrington will be there, likely sitting close to chief executive Vinai Venkatesham. It is only six months since Charrington joined Spurs as a non-executive director, a role he took up on March 12, but he finds himself having been at the club longer than Venkatesham, longer than head coach Thomas Frank and longer than women’s team head coach Martin Ho, all of whom began their new roles during the off-season. This is a period of profound adjustment for everyone at the club, to put it mildly.

Charrington himself has been learning the ropes of the football industry over the last six months, especially since Venkatesham arrived. Charrington’s background is not in sport but in private banking. He spent 26 years at Citibank and made his name at Citi Private Bank, which manages the money of high-net-worth individuals. He ran its operations in the UK and North America before becoming Citi Private Bank’s global head from 2014 to 2020. He won ‘Best Leader in Private Banking’ at the 2019 Global Private Banking Awards.

It was not just Charrington’s professional expertise that led him to Spurs, but also his relationship with the Lewis family. Charrington is a long-standing confidante and adviser to Tottenham’s majority shareholders. And after he left Citi in 2020, his next move was directly into the Lewis family operation. In 2022, Charrington became a senior partner at Nexus Luxury Collection, the luxury resort and hospitality company the Lewis family co-founded with Tiger Woods and Ernie Els. This meant having a base in the Bahamas, where the Lewis family have their Albany resort.

Beyond Nexus, Charrington is also a senior adviser to One Equity Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, as well as a non-executive board member of Swiss wealth management technology firm Avaloq, and a senior adviser to technology consulting firm UST Global.

The real point here is about more than just individuals. It is about more than just Charrington’s CV in the world of banking and wealth management. It is also about more than just Levy, as significant as he is in the history of this football club. The real point is about structure and governance, and the difference between a non-executive chairman and an executive one.

For the last 24 years, Tottenham Hotspur was structured in a very particular way. Levy was not a traditional chairman, but one who ran the whole club from the top down, along with his most trusted allies. He was across everything, a slave to the details, and not afraid to get his hands dirty with the finer points of negotiation, especially on transfers. He truly put the ‘executive’ in ‘executive chairman’. Levy was executing the work of the business every day for 24 years.

Over time, this arrangement made Tottenham stand out from their rivals, especially as other Premier League clubs moved to a more classic corporate structure — where the non-executive chairman is the backstop, someone who oversees the actions of the CEO, makes sure that the executives are doing their jobs, but does not get their hands dirty with the day-to-day running of the club.

This more traditional system is where Tottenham have ended up. It is why Charrington’s role is so different from Levy’s. In football terms, you could not call it a ‘like-for-like replacement’. Charrington will not be running the finer points of the club in the way that Levy used to.

Under such a structure, the most important person in daily operations is not the chairman, but the CEO. Venkatesham is in charge of running the club. He will become responsible for driving the strategy and making the decisions every day. Since soon after his arrival in June, senior figures, including Frank and technical director Johan Lange, have reported to Venkatesham, who, up until Thursday, reported into Levy.

In practice, Levy was still involved in the club’s operations, as the transfer window showed. Levy and Venkatesham made a video together, released on June 17. “I’ll be taking more of the lead day-to-day on operational matters on the pitch and off the pitch, but we’ll be working on everything together,” Venkatesham said. “And certainly there won’t be any decisions of any significance that happen at the club that we’re not completely joined at the hip on.”

That brief three-month double act between an executive chairman and a CEO is now over. Venkatesham is in charge of execution, and more appointments are planned for heads of department who will report to him. It is not a new responsibility for him, having been CEO of Arsenal from 2020 to 2024. His relationship with Charrington, the man he is accountable to, will be the single most important relationship in this restructured boardroom.

That is why perhaps the most important part of Charrington’s brief statement on Thursday was his reference to “empowering our talented people across the club, led by Vinai and his executive team”. The idea for this new era is not for the Lewis family to manage the details of how the club is run every day, but to have the right experts in place, and back those executives to run it well for them.

(Top photo:YouTube/@ustglobalweb)

In December 2000, Tottenham Hotspur announced the exit of Alan Sugar as chairman and began a new era in which Daniel Levy assumed the reins.

Sugar, who later became Lord Sugar, will be most familiar to younger readers as the growling star of the British edition of The Apprentice. When he stepped down a few days before Christmas in 2000, the landscape of English football was radically different to the sport we see today. The domestic television deal yielded £167.5million per season to be shared across 20 clubs. Twenty-five years later, it is £1.675billion ($2.26bn) per season — and that’s before we get onto the international rights.

At Tottenham in 2000, the record transfer fee was £11m to sign Sergei Rebrov from Dynamo Kyiv. The British transfer record was Nicolas Anelka’s £22.5m move to Real Madrid from Arsenal. This summer, Tottenham signed two players — Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons — each for over £50m, yet Tottenham’s summer spend was only the seventh-highest in the Premier League, such is the startling largesse of England’s top flight.

It has been a period of monstrous growth. When Sugar sold his stake in Tottenham, the deal gave Spurs a valuation of £60 million. The Tottenham of 2025 would sell, most likely, for between two and three billion.

In the Premier League soap opera, Levy has been a central and recurring character, central to so many plot lines. He has hired and fired some of the most famous coaches in world football, including Jose Mourinho, Antonio Conte and Mauricio Pochettino. He negotiated a then-world-record sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for £85.3 million ($100 million at the time). He was one of those executives of leading Premier League clubs who plotted to tear the sport upside-down, jumping into the European Super League in 2021 before pulling out within 48 hours. He is emblematic of a set of executives who became lightning rods for supporters; figures of fascination and frustration during transfer windows, targets of anger when season ticket prices rise, and rarely at the disposal of media or supporters for questioning.

In the vacuum that Levy’s hush created, a cartoonish picture emerged, drawn from anecdotes that have been drip-fed over decades. Sir Alex Ferguson described him as “more difficult to deal with than a hip replacement” when it came to transfer negotiations, such was the former Manchester United manager’s frustration when signing Dimitar Berbatov from Tottenham in 2008. Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola sarcastically called Levy “the big master of negotiations” when Spurs refused to sell Harry Kane in 2021.

Levy certainly drove a hard bargain and wished to run his club sustainably; Spurs were the most profitable current Premier League club during his 25 years at the helm as revenues increased more than tenfold. Those figures will simultaneously impress and infuriate; on the one hand, the finances were always protected, yet on the other, what might have been possible if the headroom afforded a little more risk in the transfer market and a little more generosity with ticket pricing?

Yet the tough exterior also had a more gentle side, such as the time he called Harry Redknapp on the night he had sacked his manager, to ask if they could still be friends. The way Levy saw it, managers in the Premier League are handsomely paid — whether they succeed or not — and it should not be taken personally if clubs opt for different ways forward. Levy’s wife, Tracy, used to joke that he and Pochettino spoke so often she wondered if the Argentine was the third person in their marriage, while on one vacation in Patagonia, Argentina, the pair went rafting together on the rapids — where Pochettino at one point needed to rescue Levy from the water.

Levy’s status in English football was raised when transfer windows, and particularly deadline days, transformed into dramatized events for television, before then being turbocharged by social media. Levy’s eye for a deal, and willingness to take business down to the wire, made him one of the most famous and talked-about executives in English football.

And for all the scandal the Super League entailed, it also revealed how Levy had thrust Tottenham into the most powerful rooms of English and European football.

Tottenham have come to be known as one of the “Big Six” clubs in the Premier League but they did not actually finish in the top six until the fourteenth season of the Premier League in the 2005-2006 campaign, and they have won only three trophies — two League Cups and one Europa League — since the inception of the Premier League in 1992.

Their trophy haul and league placings pale in comparison to those of Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, who make up the remainder of the Big Six.

Tottenham’s league positions improved considerably from 2010 onwards, finishing outside the top six on only three occasions in the past fifteen years — albeit in the top two only once — and reaching the Champions League final in 2019. Tottenham’s improved on-field performance provided Levy with the platform to push his side’s case even harder in Premier League boardrooms.

Consider, for example, a meeting between owners and executives from the other Big Six clubs at London’s Dorchester Hotel in 2016, where the clubs were discussing an expansion of the International Champions Cup — a pre-season friendly tournament — into an idea that may well have resembled something much like the eventual Super League. According to those familiar with the discussions, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships, Levy’s concern, when he found out about the meeting, was not about the content of the plans at that stage but in fact a deep frustration that Tottenham had not been included.

Not long after, Tottenham were very much back in the club at a Premier League shareholders meeting in November 2016. Premier League clubs were considering a series of offers from Chinese broadcasters for Premier League broadcast rights. While the league’s chairman Richard Scudamore asked for an immediate decision, the Big Six executives, this time including Levy, decided to take charge, scurrying away into a huddle in the corner of the room before coming back with their joint consensus. Increasingly, the six started to act as a group of their own, under the belief that because their coaches and players command the eyeballs, they should be entitled to a larger share of the revenue.

That Big Six, however, is not always a unified force. Levy worked hard to make his own club sustainable, which is why he feels so passionately that cost controls should be implemented on those rivals with access to state-backed resources. Tottenham joined Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United in 2013 — on Arsenal letter-headed paper — asking the Premier League to “curb the inflationary spending which is putting so much pressure on clubs.” The target was Manchester City. Tottenham were then part of a group of nine clubs, also including Burnley, Leicester, Newcastle United (pre-Saudi takeover) and Wolves, who went so far as to write to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to try and ensure that a two-year UEFA ban against Manchester City playing in the Champions League was upheld — a ploy which did not succeed. Levy has been supportive of attempts by the Premier League to introduce stricter rules to limit related-party transactions and avoid scenarios where businesses linked to owners of Premier League clubs might be able to inject cash into teams via backdoor sponsorships.

For all Tottenham’s growth, they do remain the smallest of the six on a global scale. This is exemplified by being the only one of the six with fewer than 10 million Twitter followers. Tottenham are tens of millions of followers behind the other five on Instagram. If Tottenham are not quite seen as equals, Levy was certainly considered worthy of being in their conversation.

As much as he may have exasperated just about every club in the Premier League over one transfer or another, he also commanded huge respect when he spoke up in shareholder meetings. Clubs such as United, Arsenal and Liverpool viewed him as someone to be cultivated, rather than alienated, particularly when votes around the table required 14 in favour to succeed.

Owners such as the Glazer family, the Kroenkes and Fenway Sports Group admired Levy’s preparedness to push boundaries. Tottenham were one of those teams who signed up for an Amazon Prime documentary, ideally timed while Mourinho was at the club. Crucially, Levy earned respect from rival owners, particularly the Americans at Liverpool, United and Arsenal, by building a state-of-the-art stadium, which produces close to £5m per game. It seats 62,850 people and it is as close as you can get to a cash machine in modern football; monetised through major concerts (Beyonce most notably), go-karting and a partnership with the NFL that sees Tottenham’s stadium host a minimum of two NFL games per season.

Levy does not leave behind a trail of glory but he will always be the man who took Tottenham into the future; traversing the bedlam of the Premier League as the league’s longest-serving chairman. The stadium stands as a physical monument of his efforts, a shrine to his reign. Now, fans will hope it serves as the rocket fuel to catapult Spurs into a new era.

(Top photo: Tom Jenkins/Getty Images)

The story of Tottenham Hotspur in the 21st century has been the story of the relationship between Daniel Levy, the long-standing chairman, and the Lewis family, the majority shareholders. Levy started working for Joe Lewis as a young man in the 1990s, was widely thought of as Lewis’ protegee, and became the managing director of ENIC, the investment firm who bought 29.9 per cent of Tottenham from Alan Sugar in December 2000 for £22million.

Levy became chairman in 2001 and, for 24 years, he ran Tottenham with a firm grip, as the club grew into a huge global brand, valued at roughly £4billion ($5.4bn), playing in one of the best new stadiums in Europe. The Lewis family were content to stay in the background, as Levy became the public face of the club.

But on Thursday September 4, that working relationship, the one that defined Spurs, came to an end. Levy was told that he was being removed as executive chairman. Peter Charrington, the director of ENIC and former banker, the man appointed to the board by the Lewis family in March, would be stepping into the new role of non-executive chairman.

The news could hardly have come as more of a shock. Many staff had no idea until the email came round from CEO Vinai Venkatesham, coinciding with the official statement, which said that Levy had “stepped down”. The statement contained some brief quotes from Levy, saying that he was “incredibly proud” of his work at Spurs, thanking the fans, and promising that he would continue to support the team.

As much of a shock as Thursday was, though, this seismic event had deep roots. Multiple sources have spoken in recent years about the relationship between Levy and the Lewis family no longer being as closely aligned as it once was. More specifically, it can be traced back to the start of this year when the Lewis family decided to take a serious look into one of the thorniest questions at Spurs, the question on the lips of so many fans: why is the team performing so badly?

Of course, last season ended in glory on the pitch with the Europa League win in Bilbao in May. But in the Premier League, it was a disaster, Spurs’ worst league season in almost 50 years. Even that trophy was Spurs’ first major one since the 2008 League Cup. Since they reached the Champions League final in 2019, Tottenham have finished in the top four of the Premier League only once, in 2021-22. For all the improvements in the training ground (opened in 2012) and stadium (in 2019), consistent competitiveness on the pitch has been hard to find. Only briefly under Mauricio Pochettino were Tottenham challenging at the top end of the league season after season.

At the start of this year, the Lewis family sought the help of U.S. management consultancy firm Gibb River to look into this. They went into the club to interview senior members of staff to find out what was going wrong. This was not a review to find out how to trim costs, find efficiencies and save money. It was about something bigger. What needed to change, in a sporting and operational sense, to get Tottenham winning again?

This review also coincided with a new appointment to the board. On March 12, in came Charrington, the former CEO of Citi Private Banking, appointed to represent the interests of the majority shareholder in the club. Charrington quickly started to learn about how things worked. Less than six months after arriving, he has now stepped into the main chair.

There were more boardroom changes to follow. In April, it was announced that Vinai Venkatesham would be joining Tottenham as the new CEO. That in itself was a radical change of direction for the club, which had never had a CEO in the ENIC era, but it was a change approved by the Lewis family. And at the end of the season, it was announced that executive director Donna-Maria Cullen would be leaving the club, having been one of the most influential people behind the scenes throughout the Levy tenure.

There were other changes too on the football side, with chief football officer Scott Munn leaving and, of course, Ange Postecoglou being dismissed and replaced by Thomas Frank.

Initially, these changes felt like an overdue updating of how the club did business. One of the most striking things about the Levy era at Spurs was that even as the club grew and grew off the pitch — employing hundreds of new staff, moving into a £1.2billion stadium, expanding the brand around the world — at its heart it was run the same way: by Levy and those closest to him. It almost felt akin to a family-run business. Even if — as this week emphatically proved — the power still lay with the Lewis family.

Because Levy was not just one of the longest-serving Premier League chairmen of the modern era. He was also one of the most dominant, across everything that happened in his club with ferocious attention to detail. The stories about Levy choosing almost every fixture and fitting in the new stadium are well-worn by now. Every few years, Tottenham would appoint a new sporting director or technical director but, ultimately, Levy would always still have his hands on the steering wheel. Just last month, he was personally negotiating with Steve Parish as Spurs attempted to sign Eberechi Eze, who ended up at Arsenal.

The arrival of Venkatesham felt like a step into the future for Spurs, as the club started to resemble most of its rivals, with a powerful CEO rather than just a hands-on executive chairman. Venkatesham and Levy, who had been close for years, had a good working relationship. When they made a video together in June, posted on Tottenham’s YouTube channel, it felt like the start of a new era. Not just for Venkatesham but also for Levy, speaking to the public in a more relaxed and informal way than he had done for years. When Levy sat down for a chatty interview with Gary Neville and said, “When I’m not here, I’m sure I’ll get the credit”, it did not sound like a prediction of his imminent departure. It sounded more like a fresh start.

Staff were enjoying a more open, communicative club culture, driven by Venkatesham and Frank. Fans were enjoying more constructive discussions with the club too. Fresh appointments were planned to bring the club’s management structure further into the modern era. A strong start for Frank and a strong finish to the transfer window underlined a sense that things might be moving in the right direction again.

But, ultimately, the biggest change of all was yet to come, the final act of this dramatic power play. That came on Thursday with Levy’s removal. The changes that started this year could not be fully realised until the most important man at the club had gone. And this was no gradual transfer of power. Levy was working on club business right up until the end. Tottenham Hotspur’s post-Levy era, a phrase that still takes some getting used to, starts today.

No one could argue that Levy did not have a good run. Future historians will debate his legacy, how the football landscape changed during his tenure, the importance of his infrastructure projects, whether he appointed the right managers at the right time, whether he backed them enough. All of this will be discussed for decades.

But it is difficult to argue that the Levy era delivered enough on the pitch over its 24 years: one League Cup in 2008, one Europa League in 2025. The team feels further away from the top of the Premier League than it did five or even 10 years ago. Many fans, clearly, had run out of patience with the way that Levy ran the football side of the club. They felt that Levy’s tenure, his distinct way of doing things, had finally run out of road. And the Lewis family agreed that it was time for a change to push for more success on the pitch. “Generations of the Lewis family support this special football club,” one person close to the Lewis family told The Athletic, speaking on condition of anonymity. “And they want what the fans want — more wins, more often.”

For decades, the Lewis family has been in the background at Spurs. Joe Lewis always had a public profile but he stepped away from involvement with the club, ceasing to be a ‘person of significant control’ in October 2022, following a reorganisation of the family trusts. Lewis, now 88, pleaded guilty to insider trading in January 2024, having been indicted for “orchestrating a brazen insider trading scheme” in the summer of 2023.

The Lewis family trust effectively controls just over 60 per cent of the club’s shares (70.1 per cent of ENIC’s stake), while the rest of ENIC’s shares are owned by Levy and his family via a similar setup of discretionary trusts. They retain these shares — roughly 25 per cent of the club’s shares — despite Levy’s exit, the club confirming on Thursday that nothing has changed in the “ownership or shareholder structure”.

Vivienne and Charles Lewis have never had the same public profile as their father Joe, but attention will now turn to them as two of the key figures at Tottenham Hotspur. The question that Spurs fans will now have for the Lewis family — not just Vivienne and Charles but their children too — is what exactly they want to do with the club. Having Levy in place as chairman for so long, the visible public face of the club, effectively spared the majority shareholders from scrutiny.

The priority will be supporting the new management team to bring success. “In Vinai, Thomas and Peter Charrington, they believe they are backing the right team to deliver on this,” the person close to the Lewis family said. But it is a measure of how dramatic this summer has been at Tottenham Hotspur, that the longest serving of those three is Charrington, and he only arrived at the club in March. Replacing all the work that Cullen did was one thing, replacing everything Levy did will be quite another. It will be a huge test of the individuals and of the club’s new structures, some of which are still being built. There has been a big emphasis on transparency and communication this summer, and that will be more important than ever as fans adjust to the new era.

The biggest question of all will be what the Lewis family’s long-term intentions are for the club. Rumours of ENIC selling have been constant ever since they first bought out Alan Sugar almost 25 years ago. In recent years, the attention has not been on a full sale as much as the possibility of selling a stake, maybe 10% of the club for £400million, providing fresh equity. Levy admitted in April 2024 that “the club requires a significant increase in its equity base”, and said that the board and their advisors Rothschild were “in discussions with prospective investors”. Such a deal might have strengthened Levy’s hand, providing him with fresh resources to compete with richer teams. But for all of the rumours, no stake in the club was ever sold.

Now that Levy has gone, all of those questions will fall to the Lewis family to answer. For all the public assumption that the Lewis family are preparing for a full sale now that Levy is out of the picture, nothing is thought to be close. Prospective buyers were as surprised as anyone by Thursday’s news. And the first focus of the Lewis family from here will be on trying to make the team more successful and more consistent.

That will mean wrestling with the questions Levy faced up until Thursday: how can a team Tottenham’s size compete with richer rivals? How much should they be prepared to risk on wages and transfer fees? Can they find new funding or will they have to get more from other revenue streams, even if they prove unpopular with the fans? What is the right balance between young and experienced players, between managers who win and managers who entertain? These were the issues that Levy spent 24 years trying to solve. Now the Lewis family must find answers of their own.

(Top image: Demetrius Robinson for The Athletic; Paul Terry/Sportimage/Cal Sport Media via AP Images)

Summer signings Randal Kolo Muani and Xavi Simons have been included in Tottenham Hotspur’s squad for the league phase of the Champions League but Yves Bissouma and Mathys Tel have both been omitted.

UEFA confirmed the 22-player Spurs A list on Wednesday, which also included summer arrivals Joao Palhinha and Mohammed Kudus, with other players left out including long-term injury absentees James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski and Radu Dragusin.

The most notable absence is that of Tel, who has yet to start under Thomas Frank and appeared as a late substitute in the Super Cup against Paris Saint-Germain, and in the Premier League matches against Burnley and Bournemouth.

The 20-year-old, who did not feature in the victory at Manchester City, joined Spurs on a permanent basis from Bayern Munich this summer after initially joining on a loan deal in the January window.

UEFA rules stipulate that teams can name a squad of up to 25 players for their competitions. Eight of those 25 need to be ‘locally-trained’ and they are split into two different categories.

Club-trained players must have been registered with the club for at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21, while association-trained players must have been registered with a club in the same association (country) for at least three seasons between the ages of 15 and 21.

Clubs are only allowed a maximum of four association-trained players.

For example, Brandon Austin is a club-trained player because he was developed in Spurs’ academy, whereas Maddison qualifies as an association-trained player because he spent the start of his career with Coventry City.

The issue Spurs face is that third-choice goalkeeper Austin is the only club-trained player in their squad, when they are required to name four. As a consequence, they must leave three places in the squad empty, and will only be able to register a reduced roster of 22 players in Europe.

This happened to them in the Europa League last season when then head coach Ange Postecoglou had to leave Djed Spence and Sergio Reguilon out of his squad for the competition’s league phase.

Frank, Postecoglou’s successor, has been faced with a similar dilemma.

The Dane has left out Maddison and Kulusevski who are both recovering from long-term knee injuries, as well as Dragusin, who is recovering from an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury.

Bissouma has also been omitted. He has not made a competitive appearance for Spurs under Frank and has entered the final year of his contract.

The Mali international was dropped from the squad for the UEFA Super Cup against Paris Saint-Germain in August due to persistent lateness and has missed all of their league games with an unspecified injury.

Another summer signing, Kota Takai, who has struggled with a foot issue since he joined Spurs from Japanese side Kawasaki Frontale in June, has also been left out.

Crucially, Frank has found space to include their summer signings Kudus, Simons, Palhinha and Kolo Muani.

Tottenham’s Champions League squad in full

Goalkeepers: Guglielmo Vicario, Antonin Kinsky, Brandon Austin

Defenders: Kevin Danso, Destiny Udogie, Cristian Romero, Pedro Porro, Djed Spence, Micky van de Ven, Ben Davies

Midfielders: Joao Palhinha, Xavi Simons, Archie Gray, Lucas Bergvall, Mohammed Kudus, Brennan Johnson, Wilson Odobert, Pape Sarr, Rodrigo Bentancur

Forwards: Richarlison, Dominic Solanke, Randal Kolo Muani

Analysis

Most people expected Frank to leave out Maddison and Kulusevski while they recover from long-term knee injuries but it is a shock that Tel has not been included.

The 20-year-old spent the second half of last season on loan with Spurs from Bayern and the deal was made permanent in June for €35million plus €10m in potential add-ons. Tel came off the bench in the UEFA Super Cup against Paris Saint-Germain and in top-flight fixtures against Burnley and Bournemouth. They were only brief cameos which suggests Frank prefers other forwards in the squad and Kolo Muani’s arrival from PSG on deadline day has pushed him further down the pecking order.

Tel’s time with Spurs has been underwhelming so far and this will be a blow to his confidence. He has been included in France’s Under-21s squad for their fixtures against Luxembourg and Serbia so it is clearly a tactical decision by Frank. He is only partially to blame though because he inherited this sticky situation with a lack of locally trained players in the squad.

Another curious decision is the omission of Dragusin. The Romania international suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury in January and is due to return to full team training by the end of the month. Dragusin will need to be eased back into competitive action but Spurs are not blessed with a lot of depth at centre-back. They wanted to sign a left-sided centre-back in the transfer window but could not identify a suitable target. Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero missed large parts of last season through injury. Kevin Danso is the only natural cover which means we could see Ben Davies and Archie Gray deployed as emergency centre-backs again.

Bissouma’s absence confirms what we already knew. He has fallen further down the pecking order following Palhinha’s arrival and his poor time management has not impressed Frank. The Mali international could still leave with the transfer windows in Turkey and Saudi Arabia still open.

Tottenham’s Champions League fixtures

All times BST/GMT

Tottenham vs Villarreal — September 16, 2025, 8pm

Bodo/Glimt vs Tottenham — September 30, 2025, 8pm

Monaco vs Tottenham — October 22, 2025, 8pm

Tottenham vs Copenhagen — November 4, 2025, 8pm

PSG vs Tottenham — November 26, 2025, 8pm

Tottenham vs Slavia Prague — December 9, 2025, 8pm

Tottenham vs Borussia Dortmund — January 20, 2026, 8pm

Frankfurt vs Tottenham — January 28, 2026, 8pm

(Top photo of Xavi Simons: Julian Finney/Getty Images)

It has been a long window for Tottenham Hotspur.

They changed managers in June, lost their best midfielder to an ACL injury in August and then sold their most popular player and captain. They went through not one but two high-profile sagas, failing to sign either Morgan Gibbs-White or Eberechi Eze. At times this summer, it felt like Tottenham were unable to land the level of player they so desperately needed. And at times, the fans were furious.

But at the end of the window, Thomas Frank has four new first-team players, following permanent deals for Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons, and loans for Joao Palhinha and Randal Kolo Muani. The team looks in better shape now than it was at the start of the window.

It has been a strikingly busy, turbulent and emotional window across the board. It is difficult to judge how much teams have been strengthened until much further into the season. But maybe, if these four players settle well, this will be the window where Spurs started to claw some ground back.

Remember Ange Postecoglou’s last words as Tottenham manager. In his weary press conference after his last game in charge — the 4-1 home defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion — he explained clearly what the club needed in the summer window. Regardless of the identity of the manager.

He pointed to the “little gap in the development” left by the summer 2024 window, when experienced players left and were replaced — Dominic Solanke notwithstanding — by youngsters. He talked about the need to “bring some experience in” this time. “Players who have played at that level, who are going to be comfortable at that level. Not players who are stepping up to that level. That’s the difference.”

That analysis was no less correct just because the man who delivered it was subsequently sacked. With Frank coming in, there was still an obvious need to add players who could hit the ground running. Tottenham had stood still in the transfer market in previous years. They needed to move fast just to catch up.

The fact they had such a dramatic end to last season made things harder rather than easier.

In an ideal world, any club would be lining up all their summer deals long before the end of the season, ideally in March. But Tottenham did not know they were playing Champions League football in 2025-26 until May 21. Postecoglou was sacked on June 6, with Thomas Frank appointed six days later. Their new CEO Vinai Venkatesham, who was heavily involved in the window, did not start until June. They were always going to have to move fast to compete with their rivals.

Their eventual focus on experience does not mean they took their eye off the youth market entirely. Their first new signing this summer — aside from finalising the permanent deals for last year’s loanees — was for Kota Takai. The 20-year-old Japanese centre-back came in from Kawasaki Frontale, a clear sign Tottenham want to keep bringing the best young talent from around the world. Luka Vuskovic, an 18-year-old centre-back lined up two years ago, finally joined from Hajduk Split before being loaned out to Hamburg.

But the priority was experience. Players who had already shown that they could do it in the Premier League, and who could help Frank from the first day of the season. Especially those who could improve Spurs’ attacking options in the final third. With Son Heung-min on the way out — he left for LAFC after the Asia tour — Tottenham needed more firepower.

In mid-June, Spurs made an enquiry to Bournemouth about Antoine Semenyo, their Ghanaian winger. They were put off by the £70million ($94.8m) price tag, and Semenyo went on to sign a new contract, but the intention was clear.

There were other players out there who fitted that bill, not least from Brentford, Frank’s former club.

Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa had both shone under Frank’s coaching in west London. He was interested in bringing both to Tottenham and did speak to them. But Mbeumo’s heart was set on Manchester United, whereas Wissa was difficult to do without sales. His proposed move to Newcastle United became a saga all of its own. He finally moved to St James’ Park on deadline day.

Chelsea were linked with Kudus, but it was Tottenham who moved first and fastest. On July 5, they had a £50m bid rejected. Four days later, they agreed a fee of £55m plus add-ons. Kudus became the first big-name signing of the Frank era.

Tottenham announced the arrival of Kudus on July 10. But that day became dominated by a different transfer story, one that became one of the most dramatic of their summer.

That was the day Spurs sent Nottingham Forest a formal offer for Morgan Gibbs-White, for an overall package — including add-ons — that would have constituted a club-record buy. Gibbs-White had a £60m release clause, and the offer was in excess of that. It felt for a brief moment that Gibbs-White was certain to join Tottenham. He even had a medical pencilled in.

It was a moment of real excitement for the Tottenham fanbase. Kudus was a good signing, but Gibbs-White would have been a real statement: a 25-year-old England international, the captain and best player of the team who finished seventh the previous season. He could bring technical skill, athleticism and leadership into any midfield. He was the level of player who you would expect to move to Manchester City or Liverpool if he did leave Forest. And now he wanted to join Spurs.

All of a sudden, it felt like a different window, a different Tottenham.

But there was a hitch. Forest’s view was that Spurs’ bid did not, in fact, meet Gibbs-White’s release clause. They refused to do business.

Gibbs-White’s club maintained this position even when Tottenham returned with a second, higher bid. Forest dug in, and considered reporting Tottenham to the Premier League. It was an unusual situation, to put it mildly. There was little more that Tottenham could do. Gibbs-White even called Frank to apologise for the move not going through. On July 26, Forest announced that Gibbs-White had signed a new contract with them.

Much of the excitement of July 10 amongst Tottenham fans had started to curdle into frustration.

This was a window when Tottenham had to address multiple issues simultaneously. And while the No 10 dilemma remained, they also needed a solution in defensive midfield.

Frank knew that the team needed more stability in the middle of the pitch, a player who could be relied on to keep his position and stop the opposition attacking through the middle. “When I came in and assessed the squad, it was an area where I thought we could need something there,” Frank said on the Asia tour. Rodrigo Bentancur could play there, but he wanted something more. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, who played for Frank as a youngster in Denmark, was not an option as his loan move to Marseille became permanent.

At Brentford, Frank had used his captain Christian Norgaard there. Taking him to Tottenham might have been attractive, but Arsenal moved quickly, and Spurs never had an opportunity. He signed for Arsenal on July 10. But over the course of that month, another option came into view. A player with Premier League experience and who was clearly available for a move.

Joao Palhinha had not made much of an impact under Vincent Kompany at Bayern Munich but he had proven in his two years at Fulham how competitive he could be in this league. Bayern were happy to let the Portuguese go. Spurs had a free run, Arsenal having considered Palhinha before deciding to sign Norgaard instead.

Tottenham’s initial preference was for a loan, and they soon reached an agreement with Bayern, covering the midfielder’s wages for the season, with a €30m (£25.9m) option for next summer. He had a medical in Germany on August 1 and signed his deal.

Two days later, the issue of creativity in midfield became even more serious. James Maddison, slowly on his way back after a knee injury suffered in May, went down during a pre-season friendly in Korea. He had ruptured his ACL and would need surgery. Maddison would miss most of the forthcoming season. Tottenham were staring down the barrel of going into the season with no fit creative players.

Missing out on Gibbs-White was even more painful now than it had been in July. They needed to move fast.

The club had been well aware of Eberechi Eze’s talent for years. They had always admired the Crystal Palace man but never made a serious move. But in August, they finally started to push. He had an active release clause of £68m but Spurs were confident they could negotiate a lower fee. They entered into indirect talks and, on August 18, Levy and the Palace chairman Steve Parish met to agree the framework for a deal: £50m plus £10m in add-ons.

But when it came to negotiate those add-ons, agreement was impossible. The demands kept changing. The deal suddenly felt unlikely. On the morning of August 20, Tottenham decided to agree to Palace’s demands and submitted a formal offer.

But they never heard back.

All of the fans’ frustration, that had been simmering since Gibbs-White fell through, suddenly boiled over.

Spurs had missed out on not one but two high-profile Premier League-proven No 10s. Regardless of the particulars of the two cases, they looked weak and unable to close deals in the eyes of the fans. They needed to complete the next one. Levy’s reputation was at stake.

What Spurs needed was an exciting name to reset the mood. They had already asked Manchester City about Savinho, discussing with them a package worth €50m, but City had said no. They were interested in Como’s Argentina midfielder Nico Paz, too, although Real Madrid had the right to match any bid that they made, as well as future release clauses all of their own for him.

But there was another option they could turn to, a top-quality No 10 who could win games by himself: Xavi Simons.

RB Leipzig were not averse to selling Simons, but the expectation all summer was that Chelsea would move for him. As they waited, Tottenham pounced. Simons travelled to London on August 27 to discuss the move.

As with any potential signing, Spurs wanted to know the player’s motivations, rather than convincing him to join them. The talks went well, Simons was keen to join in part because of his good relationship with Dutch international team-mate Micky van de Ven. Tottenham put their official bid in the next day for an initial €60m, potentially rising to €70m. Simons had his medical that Thursday evening and the deal was completed overnight. Simons signed a five-year deal (with an option for a further two) to become a Tottenham player.

Spurs needed a mood-changing signing and they finally had one.

Simons was paraded on the pitch before the Premier League game against Bournemouth on August 30. Fans were talking about whether this was Spurs’ most exciting signing since their last Dutch No 10, Rafael van de Vaart, who joined from Real Madrid at the end of the summer 2010 window.

It still felt after Simons that there were a few loose ends for Spurs, or at least areas where they could still improve. They had numbers at centre-back but adding one more experienced alternative, someone as good as Van de Ven and Cristian Romero but who would not necessarily expect to play every game, was considered. That is a difficult player to find in the market, and while there was interest in Manuel Akanji of Manchester City, he went to Inter instead.

Instead, it was the forward line that received reinforcement on the final day of the window.

They did not secure another winger, having been told no by City on Savinho, but another striker instead. Randal Kolo Muani had been of longstanding interest to Spurs, who considered taking him on loan from Paris Saint-Germain during the January window. This time, they agreed a loan with PSG on deadline day.

Frank had said after the Bournemouth game that they would not necessarily go for a third striker, but with Solanke not having started yet this season due to a persistent ankle injury, a deal for the France international made perfect sense. It remains to be seen how he will fit in but it is inconceivable that he will not play a lot of football this season.

And now that it is finally all over, how do we assess it?

Some windows look far better in hindsight than they did at the time because they brought players to the club whose value took time to show. The 2015 window, when Spurs signed Toby Alderweireld and Son, looks far better now than it did after one year, when Son was largely written off as a flop.

But people want to see results now, especially given that last year Spurs’ focus was more on investments for the future rather than immediate upgrades. There has been a feeling for a while that Tottenham had let their rivals overtake them in the transfer market, and they needed to catch up. They entered this window under more pressure to deliver than they ever had been before. And there were moments this summer — when they missed out on Gibbs-White and Eze — that felt like they were getting nowhere.

In the end, though, Tottenham have emerged with three players who unquestionably elevate the quality of the first team in Kudus, Palhinha and Simons. Kolo Muani’s record is arguably as good as that of Richarlison or Solanke and there is every chance that he will score more goals than either of them this year.

Whether you think that is three or four players who improve the first team, it is a more productive window than most that Spurs have had in recent years. This is the second summer window for technical director Johan Lange, whose skills dovetail when required with those of consultant Fabio Paratici, and it has been an improvement on the first.

As Spurs fans all know, bringing in two players — never mind more — in any window who instantly improve the first team is not the normal way of things at Tottenham. The best window of recent years was 2023, when the squad was re-tooled for Postecoglou, and they signed Gugliemo Vicario, Maddison and Van de Ven, as well as Johnson, who ended up playing a bigger role than planned that year.

But beyond that? In summer 2024, it was only Solanke who came straight into the side, which cost the team dearly. The January window of 2022, quite unusually, delivered two first-team upgrades in Dejan Kulusevski and Bentancur. The summer 2022 window saw two big-name signings in Richarlison and Ivan Perisic, neither of whom did much for the team that season, and another in Yves Bissouma, whom Antonio Conte did not take to. In summer 2021, there was only Romero. In summer 2020 only really Hojbjerg. We could go on.

Maybe you have to go back to the summer window of 2012 — Jan Vertonghen, Hugo Lloris, Mousa Dembele — for something comparable.

There are still things that could be improved in this squad. They did not add another high-quality experienced centre back (if we do not count turning Danso’s loan permanent). If Romero, who signed a new long-term contract this window, and Van de Ven are injured, then it will be Danso and Dragusin again. They could probably do with another central midfielder who can pass the ball, as Saturday’s defeat to Bournemouth showed. Maybe they need another goal threat down the left, now that Son has left. Much will depend on what Frank can eke out of Mathys Tel and Wilson Odobert.

But in the context of a normal Tottenham summer window, it is better than normal. The team is stronger now than it was when the last season ended, and will be better still when Kulusevski and Maddison eventually return.

Whether it will be enough to make up the gap between Spurs and where they want to be, only time will tell.

(Additional reporting: Sebastian Stafford-Bloor, Jay Harris)

(Top photo: Robin Jones – AFC Bournemouth/AFC Bournemouth via Getty Images)

Dele Alli, the former Tottenham Hotspur and England midfielder, has left Como after agreeing to a mutual termination of his contract with the Italian club.

“Dele is keen to secure regular playing opportunities and, as he was not part of the club’s immediate plans, both parties felt it was the right decision to part ways ahead of the transfer window closing,” read a Como statement on Monday evening.

“The club thanks Dele for his time at Como and wishes him the very best for the future.”

As a free agent who was released before the end of the Italian transfer window, Dele would be free to join another European club and feature immediately, provided he is registered in time to be included on the relevant squad lists.

The Athletic reported on August 7 that Dele was set to leave the Serie A club and continue his playing career elsewhere, contrary to reports in Italy that the 29-year-old was planning to retire.

Dele signed an 18-month contract upon joining Como as a free agent in January following his exit from Everton, and made just one appearance for Cesc Fabregas’ side – which was quickly cut short by a red card after he came on as an 80th-minute substitute in the 2-1 defeat to AC Milan in March.

The two-time PFA young player of the year has struggled for consistent game time since his departure from Tottenham in 2022. Dele had subsequent spells with Everton and Besiktas but has not played more than 20 games in a season since 2021-22. He missed the entirety of the 2023-24 campaign through injury.

Dele spent seven seasons with Spurs after joining the north London club from MK Dons as one of the brightest young English prospects at the time. He scored 10 goals and assisted 10 in his debut season, before improving on that tally with 22 goals and 13 assists the following year, as Mauricio Pochettino’s side finished second in the top-flight.

Despite hamstring injuries, Dele also played a key role in Tottenham’s run to the 2019 Champions League final. He made a total of 269 appearances for the club.

The midfielder has been capped 37 times for England, and in a Sky Sports appearance in April 2024, he revealed his ambitions of returning to the international set-up for the 2026 World Cup.

In 2023, Dele spoke about his mental health in an interview with Gary Neville on The Overlap, and revealed Everton’s support for him while he went through rehab for a sleeping pill addiction.

(Paolo Bruno/Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur have agreed a deal with Paris Saint-Germain over a straight season-long loan for forward Randal Kolo Muani.

Personal terms with the striker have been agreed and the player is on the way to London to complete a medical.

The loan deal will not an include an option nor obligation to make the transfer permanent at the end of the season.

The France international has been out of favour with the European champions and spent the second half of 2024-25 on loan at Juventus.

Kolo Muani was negotiating a return to Juventus but talks collapsed over the weekend, opening the door for the north London club.

Spurs and Manchester United explored a loan deal for the 26-year-old in January before he moved to Turin.

Kolo Muani recorded 10 goals and three assists in 22 appearances for Juventus and appeared in all but one of their Serie A matches following his arrival. He joined PSG in 2023 after the French club agreed a €90million deal with Eintracht Frankfurt and signed a five-year contract.

PSG and Spurs face each other in the Champions League league phase at the Parc des Princes, Paris, on November 26 — a match in which Kolo Muani could face his parent club.

Spurs have made a positive start to the season under new head coach Thomas Frank but club-record signing Dominic Solanke is struggling with an ankle injury, and missed Saturday’s 1-0 defeat to B0urnemouth.

Richarlison is the only other natural centre-forward in Frank’s squad.

Solanke started Tottenham’s first pre-season game against Reading on July 19 before hurting his ankle which prevented him from playing in any of the matches during their pre-season tour to Hong Kong and South Korea.

The England international made his return as a substitute in the UEFA Super Cup against Paris Saint-Germain on August 13. Solanke came off the bench in Spurs’ league victories over Burnley and Manchester City, too.

After the Bournemouth defeat, Frank downplayed the severity of Solanke’s injury, saying: “It’s not like he re-injured it.”

“It’s not progressing as quickly as we hoped for, but we are still positive that it can be solved in the next two weeks,” Frank added.

The hope was that Solanke would return after the international break for Spurs’ game against West Ham United on September 13.

Kolo Muani scored two goals in 10 appearances for PSG in the first half of the campaign, primarily utilised as a substitute, but was left out of matchday squads by Luis Enrique for four Ligue 1 matches in December and January.

The striker started his career at Nantes, before joining Frankfurt on a free transfer in 2022. He recorded 26 goals and 17 assists in 50 appearances for the German club.

Kolo Muani has continued to appear regularly for France and earned his 31st cap against Germany in the Nations League in June.

Analysis

Spurs struggled to cope with a crippling injury crisis last season and, at the moment, it feels like nothing has changed. James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski and Radu Dragusin are recovering from long-term knee injuries, while new signing Kota Takai missed the entirety of pre-season with a foot issue.

Solanke is the latest name to be added to the growing list and a prolonged absence would give Frank a huge headache.

Richarlison scored twice in Spurs’ opening weekend victory over Burnley and assisted Brennan Johnson’s goal in the 2-0 win at Manchester City. However, Richarlison’s limitations were exposed in Saturday’s defeat to Bournemouth as he struggled to hold the ball up and bring others into play.

Solanke is Tottenham’s club-record signing and Frank has barely had any time to properly work with him due to the forward’s ankle injury. If Solanke misses a significant chunk of the season, Frank will potentially have to use Mathys Tel as an alternative option to Richarlison upfront.

Tel has not looked entirely convincing since he joined Spurs from Bayern Munich, initially on loan before the move became permanent, in February. Richarlison’s injury record since he joined Spurs from Everton in July 2022 has not been great either.

After the defeat to Bournemouth, Frank suggested he was happy with his forward options but Spurs might have to act decisively on the final day of the window because of the uncertainty around Solanke.

(Chris Ricco/Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur have completed the signing of Xavi Simons from RB Leipzig.

The clubs agreed a deal worth €60million (£51.8m; $70m) for the 22-year-old Netherlands international attacker, who has signed a five-year contract at Spurs with the option of a further two seasons.

As part of this summer’s transfer coverage on The Athletic, in addition to breaking news, tactical analysis and in-depth reads, our Transfers TLDR series (you can read them all here) will bring you a quick guide to each of the key deals.

Give me his backstory in 100 words…

Considering that he has moved from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain to PSV, back to PSG, and then to RB Leipzig, played in two major tournaments, and drawn interest from most top clubs in Europe, it is quite easy to forget that Simons is only 22.

Even for the most talented of players, a creative midfielder who was lauded as the best 10-year-old footballer in the world and one of the top prospects in Europe while at Barcelona’s academy, the journey has not been straightforward. Simons left Barca for PSG aged 16, but after struggling for senior minutes, he moved on to PSV in 2022. A stellar season in his homeland saw the French club activate his buy-back clause. They immediately loaned him out to Leipzig.

Simons continued to excel in Germany, leading Leipzig to sign him permanently this January, but he informed them at the start of summer that he wished to leave. Now, his rollercoaster journey around Europe has landed him in north London.

Cerys Jones

What should and shouldn’t I expect to see?

Creativity is Simons’ major strength. The technique that made him internet-famous before his senior career truly took off is still there, and his reading of the game is superb. That, combined with direct pace on the transition, means Tottenham fans should expect to see him pulling the strings of their counter-attacks. He can also be a composed finisher.

Expect head coach Thomas Frank to take a little while to work out how to get the best from him. As my colleague Sebastian Stafford-Bloor has written, Simons played a very specific role at Leipzig that does not easily translate to many other clubs. At Spurs, the most obvious place for him is on the left wing, but Frank will want to make the most of his creativity, and that could involve rotation into central areas.

Cerys Jones

How will he fit in tactically?

Frank’s tactical flexibility and Simons’ versatility should make this a good match.

The Netherlands international can play as the No 10 that Tottenham need with James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski both lost to knee injuries for months to come, or as a left inside-forward in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

Simons is a skilled chance creator when drifting into the half spaces with a keen eye for picking out team-mates in packed areas. That, along with his agility, dribbling and flair, helped him record 18 assists across the past two Bundesliga seasons, along with a healthy personal goals return.

Simons’ defensive work-rate is excellent too, with only Florian Wirtz of Bayer Leverkusen, Werder Bremen’s Romano Schmid and Granit Xhaka, also of Leverkusen, winning more possessions in the final third than his 51 in the German top flight across that same two-year period.

He is not the quickest, or the best crosser, and he has struggled against physical opposition, but Simons has the skill to thrive, much like Mikkel Damsgaard did for Frank’s Brentford side last season.

Anantaajith Raghuraman

What’s his injury record like?

Little to worry Spurs supporters here. Simons needed surgery on ligament damage in his left ankle last October after a Champions League game against Liverpool, which ruled him out until January, but he has no other significant injuries on his record.

Cerys Jones

Someone who knows him says…

“He’s really hungry,” Fred Rutten, who was an assistant coach at PSV during Simons’ time there, told The Athletic in 2023. “He wants to be the best. He’s only 20, but he can already read games. Not many players can do that at that age; they only think about themselves. He has something that not a lot of players have — they get nervous when they come into the box; he never gets nervous, and he knows exactly what he’s going to do. He’s not the type of player that needs many chances to score goals.”

Cerys Jones

What do we know about the finances of this deal?

Spurs have paid Leipzig €60million for Simons, who only completed a permanent move to the German side in January, when they signed him for €50m (£43.3m; $58.5m at current rates) from Paris Saint-Germain following a successful 18-month loan spell.

Simons has signed a five-year contract, committing to life in north London until June 2030, though the agreement includes an option to extend that by two further seasons.

Chris Weatherspoon

What impact will this have on both clubs’ PSR calculation?

Assuming agent costs of 10 per cent, alongside the Premier League’s transfer levy, Simons will cost Tottenham £59.1million in total fees. That is, obviously, before taking into account the cost of his weekly wage, which will push their overall expenditure on him a fair sight higher.

That £59.1million will be amortised across Simons’ five-year contract. Spurs will book £10.2m in amortisation costs in 2025-26, then £12.2m annually until the end of the 2029-30 season.

Simons joined Leipzig permanently just seven months ago, though the fact he only signed a two-and-a-half-year deal at that time means his book value has already declined a fair way. We estimate it at around £35.5million, once agent fees are added to the amount paid to Paris Saint-Germain.

PSG are due a sell-on fee from this deal, which is 10 per cent of any fee Leipzig earn above that €50million paid earlier this year. Leipzig’s earnings are reduced further as this is an international transfer, meaning five per cent of the £51.8m fee goes to clubs involved in Simons’ development between the ages of 12 and 23.

PSG’s sell-on clause entitles France’s European champions to around €0.8m (£700,000), and they’ll bank around a further €1.9m (£1.7m) in solidarity fees. Barcelona will get around €630,000 (£550,000) in those too, while PSV Eindhoven will see roughly €300,000 (£260,000).

After all that, Leipzig, who will retain a small portion of the solidarity fee, are able to book around €15.3m (£13.2m) profit on Simons in their 2025-26 financials.

Chris Weatherspoon

(Top photo: Getty Images)