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Talented young Brazilian wingers rarely come cheap, but the £85million ($116m) package Tottenham Hotspur agreed with Manchester City to sign Savio (formerly known as Savinho) feels overinflated.

The 22-year-old dazzled in his first few appearances after joining City from French side Troyes in 2024 (having impressed on loan at Girona in 2023-24), but then faded fast, recording just two goals across 53 league appearances for the club.

It was obvious to anyone watching Spurs’ 3-0 opening-day demolition away to Brentford that they were in dire need of attacking reinforcements, but given Savio’s meagre output, has that desperation allowed the market to take advantage?

Even as recently as yesterday evening, eyebrows were raised when Nottingham Forest agreed a club-record transfer to bring Liam Delap (Premier League goals last season: one) from Stamford Bridge to Chelsea.

Whether Spurs have overpaid for Savio is a tricky question to answer, given there is no clear consensus on exactly how footballers should be valued. It is an intractable equation combining factors such as a player’s age, current contract length, past performance, potential (which Spurs are clearly placing greater weight on) and marketability.

Not that the complexity has put people off trying to solve the unsolvable. German website Transfermarkt is the best-known resource for wide-scale estimates of players’ “market values”. Using these estimates, The Athletic compared the market value of every Premier League transfer since 2012 with the fee paid to get a broad-brush sense of which deals represented the biggest overpayments.

Note that, for scalability, we used the fees listed by Transfermarkt rather than those reported by The Athletic. Transfermarkt lists Savio’s purchase price as £75.4million, similar to the initial £75million upfront fee reported by The Athletic, but short of the potential overall £85million package.

On that basis, Savio’s fee represents a £45.3million premium on his estimated market value of £30.1million, the fifth-largest amount above market value in the dataset. The table below lists the top 20, and like any transfer table, it is a mixed bag of successes and failures.

Enzo Fernandez sits top of the pile, with Transfermarkt estimating that Chelsea coughed up almost £60million more than he was worth when they signed him from Benfica in early 2023. In hindsight, Chelsea appear to have valued the Argentine correctly and would expect to recoup their investment if he leaves before the window shuts, with Manchester City strongly linked with a move.

The two names below Fernandez, though, Kepa Arrizabalaga and Antony, are perhaps the biggest examples of Premier League transfer extravagance. Both flopped — at Chelsea and Manchester United — with their fees widely viewed as excessive even at the time.

Savio is joined on the list by two other deals from this summer’s window: new team-mate Mateus Fernandes, signed from West Ham for £85.1million, and Morgan Rogers, who Chelsea bought from Aston Villa for £118.7million. Chelsea and Tottenham top the overall Premier League spending this summer, at £342million and £305million respectively, although Transfermarkt believes Spurs have registered the bigger overspend at £135million compared with Chelsea’s £85million.

In defence of Spurs’ apparent overspending, Transfermarkt’s market values rely on crowdsourced guesstimates rather than any sophisticated modelling.

That said, transfer economics, with its spiralling inflation and state-owned clubs, defies rational logic anyway, and Transfermarkt’s back-of-the-envelope approach is surprisingly accurate. Its estimates tend to err on the side of caution: roughly two-thirds of the transfer fees examined were completed above the recorded market value, but the histogram below shows that the estimates generally sit fairly close to these fees.

Another point of mitigation for Spurs is that a deal that looks like good value when it’s completed is no guarantee of success. Below is the flip side of our earlier chart: the top 20 transfers based on how much the fee fell below market value. Erling Haaland leads the way, but the Norwegian is something of an exception: the forward had a release clause at Borussia Dortmund that sat far below what everyone knew the fearsome striker was worth, allowing City to prise away a player valued at £129million for considerably less.

Outside of Haaland, the list contains few unqualified successes, despite the deep discounts they appeared to represent at the point of purchase. Savio is the only player to appear on both lists, embodying the unreliable nature of transfer valuations. He had been considered a steal when City signed him from Troyes for £21.5million, now his move to Spurs ranks among the most exorbitant.

Ultimately, the value of a transfer is in the eye of the beholder. To a neutral onlooker, Savio’s fee, when weighed against his limited impact in the Premier League, is among the more puzzling in recent memory.

But scouts, coaches and executives perform deep due diligence before sanctioning such outlays, and there will be harder-to-measure factors at play here: whether that is his natural fit for De Zerbi’s style or underlying data that suggests there is a far more devastating player waiting to be unleashed.

Manchester City’s Omar Marmoush is set to undergo a medical at Tottenham Hotspur after the two sides agreed a loan deal for the forward that includes an obligation to buy.

The obligation will be worth a guaranteed £50million with £10m due in add-ons, £5m of which are guaranteed. The Egypt international is set to sign a four-year contract in north London with the option of an additional season. There is no sell-on fee due to Marmoush’s former side Eintracht Frankfurt.

The Athletic reported on Wednesday that Spurs were working on a double deal for Marmoush and his City team-mate Savio. Tottenham have since signed Savio in an £85m package, who was the subject of talks between the clubs last summer.

The move for Marmoush is a new pursuit, with The Athletic previously reporting that the Egypt international could leave the Etihad Stadium this summer, despite only joining City in January 2025.

Marmoush scored eight goals in 36 appearances across all competitions last season, though only made eight starts in the Premier League, featuring a further 13 times off the bench. He was part of the squad for the 3-0 Community Shield defeat against Arsenal on August 16, coming on as a substitute for Erling Haaland in the second half.

The 27-year-old signed for City in January last year in a deal worth in the region of €70m (£59m) to €75m (£63m) from Frankfurt, after an impressive start to the 2024-25 season in which he scored 20 goals in 26 appearances for the German side.

Marmoush made an impact after his arrival, scoring seven times in 16 games, but fell down the pecking order last season as his minutes were reduced.

The proposed move to north London would be the latest deal in what has been a busy summer for Spurs, who have already spent in excess of £300m on Savio, Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes and Jan Paul van Hecke. Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka have also arrived as free agents.

What will City duo bring to Spurs?

Analysis by Tottenham correspondent Jack Pitt-Brooke

It has been a long wait for Tottenham fans in recent weeks, holding on for the club to complete their summer business with the addition of new attacking players.

The way Spurs have handled this summer, starting with the defence, then moving onto the midfield, left a strange situation where the front line was clearly the weakest part of the team. Especially given how many of their attackers are still out injured.

That has finally started to change. Savio’s arrival and Marmoush’s impending move from City mean that Tottenham are now set to have the big-name forwards to go with the improvements they have made elsewhere in the team. And those two signings fit neatly alongside the other additions from this summer, particularly given they are already established in the Premier League.

Savio has two seasons at City behind him, and while last year was quiet for the 22-year-old Brazilian, he knows the league and will not need an adjustment period. He was one of the most exciting young talents in Europe when City signed him two years ago, and will offer speed and directness that Spurs have lacked.

Marmoush has been at City for 18 months and was never the first-choice No 9 simply because of Haaland. But he has shown that he has energy, mobility and an eye for goal. This has been a problem position for Tottenham for some time, given the struggles for consistency and fitness for Richarlison and Dominic Solanke. Marmoush will immediately elevate the team. Which is exactly what De Zerbi was hoping for.

Tottenham Hotspur midfielder James Maddison has fractured his shoulder and is set to be out for up to two weeks.

The injury occurred from a fall during their Premier League-opening 3-0 loss to Brentford, and a subsequent MRI scan showed a slight break.

Maddison trained on Monday and though the scans showed minor damage, there is optimism that the issue is not serious.

Speaking at a news conference on Tuesday, Spurs head coach Roberto De Zerbi said Maddison had sustained a “small injury” to his shoulder during his substitute appearance.

Maddison had limited involvement in Tottenham’s pre-season schedule after what De Zerbi described as a “small problem” in the summer.

The 29-year-old missed almost the entirety of the 2025-26 season with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), and returned in May as a substitute in the 1-1 draw against Leeds, making two further appearances from the bench at the end of the campaign.

That injury had seen Maddison sidelined from competitive action for 12 months. The midfielder said he suffered a partial tear of the ACL during the Europa League semi-final first leg against Bodo/Glimt in May 2025, before attempting to return in a pre-season fixture against Newcastle United three months later, where he sustained a full rupture.

Maddison also suffered a significant ankle injury which kept him out for around two months in his debut season at Spurs, after signing from Leicester City in June 2023 in a deal worth over £40million ($54.6m). He has made a total of 79 appearances since joining the club.

Injuries have been a recurring theme for Spurs in recent seasons and De Zerbi is still contending with a number of key absences in his squad. Xavi Simons and Wilson Odobert are out long-term with ACL injuries alongside Dejan Kulusevski, who missed the entire 2025-26 season.

Mohammed Kudus has been out since he suffered a quad injury in January, but has returned to training, while Micky van de Ven and Pape Matar Sarr missed the Brentford opener.

Pedro Porro was also absent, as a result of a shortened pre-season following his involvement with Spain in their World Cup success.

This piece was originally published on August 21 and has been updated to reflect the completion of Savio’s transfer to Tottenham Hotspur

For the second summer transfer window in a row, Tottenham Hotspur have been in the market to sign a winger.

The departure of Brennan Johnson in January and long-term injuries to Mohammed Kudus and Wilson Odobert limited Spurs’ wide options entering the 2026-27 season.

Mathys Tel can operate on the left, but the absences of Kudus and Odobert mean that Roberto De Zerbi’s side lacked a dribbler to complement the French forward’s profile.

So it was not surprising that Spurs continued their pursuit of Manchester City’s Savio, known as Savinho during his time at the Etihad. This was a saga that started last summer and is concluded after Spurs finalised an £85million deal on Tuesday.

Savio is a creative dribbler and his ability to operate on either flank makes him a valuable option even after Kudus and Odobert return.

The 22-year-old Brazilian can play down the left when Kudus is on the right, while his left-footedness offers different crossing angles from Odobert on that side.

Savio’s dribbling ability — in small and large areas — is his strongest asset, which is useful in quick build-ups, transitional situations and against low blocks.

He can bypass opponents in tight spaces and close to the byline due to his trickery and short bursts of acceleration, which is visible by the location of his take-ons during the 2024-25 Premier League season (the 821 minutes Savio played with City in 2025-26 is a relatively small sample size to analyse).

The proactiveness of Savio’s dribbling is evident in the volume of his take-ons. His rate of 6.3 take-ons per 90 minutes was the 11th-highest in Europe’s top five leagues in 2024-25 when compared with fellow wingers who played at least 900 minutes.

As illustrated in the carry map below, Savio mainly dribbles on the outside of the opponent’s full-backs, which is an area for improvement as he needs to diversify his actions to create different shooting and crossing angles. However, there were encouraging signs from the 2024-25 season that this aspect can be developed.

Savio’s trait of going on the outside is complemented by his ability to cross with either foot, which means he doesn’t need to adjust his body shape to cross with his dominant left.

In this example, from City’s 2-1 defeat against Spurs in October 2024, Savio is facing Destiny Udogie down the right wing.

The Brazilian fakes a dribble with his left, and immediately pushes the ball into space with his right.

Savio’s acceleration gives him an advantage, but it’s his ability to cross with his right foot that allows him to capitalise on the small crossing angle that opens up before Udogie closes him down.

The City winger puts the ball towards the back post, and Matheus Nunes finishes the move.

Savio’s comfort on either foot allows him to dribble with one and cross with the other, limiting the time for the opposition to react.

Add in his acceleration, and you get an idea about how Savio can create chances from the tightest of spaces down the flanks and in dangerous zones in the final third.

Since arriving in the Premier League in 2024, nearly half (46 per cent) of Savio’s chances created from open play have come in the half-space zones in the penalty area.

Savio’s creative output was on show in his first season at City, providing eight assists in the Premier League and three in the other competitions.

Meanwhile, his open-play expected assists (xA) per 90 (0.34) was the third-highest among players who played at least 900 minutes in the 2024-25 Premier League campaign — only Kevin De Bruyne (0.36) and Mohamed Salah (0.37) had a higher rate.

“He is a player with incredible potential,” City’s previous manager, Pep Guardiola, said during the 2025 Club World Cup. “We can’t forget he is so young. He needs to be more decisive in the final third in (certain) aspects.

“The moment he will make this step — in a natural way it will come because he has incredible individual quality — he will become an extraordinary player. He can play on both sides, right or left, is so fast, and he understands tactically the movements he has to do.”

One of the areas where Savio is yet to reach his potential is his finishing. Across his two Premier League seasons with City, he underperformed in front of goal, only scoring twice from 7.4 non-penalty expected goals (xG).

The main area of improvement is Savio’s tendency to shoot straight at the goalkeeper instead of finding the near or far corners of the goal, as seen in the examples below.

Coincidentally, his only Premier League goal last season came when he slotted the ball into the far corner in City’s 3-0 victory against Crystal Palace in May.

This type of finish and blasted shots into the top of the near post are the types of efforts Savio needs to work on to improve his goalscoring rate.

There are other aspects of Savio’s profile that may translate better to a more vertical De Zerbi side compared to Guardiola’s City.

In the last two seasons, the winger showed glimpses of his off-ball runs behind the opponent’s defence, an ability to control the ball comfortably with either foot and use his first touch to attack the space.

These characteristics can be more dangerous in a more direct role down the wings. In addition, Savio’s pace with and without the ball makes him a threat in transitional situations.

It remains to be seen how Savio’s move to Spurs will play out, but the 22-year-old should instantly upgrade the team’s attack, while also having room for significant improvement.

Tottenham Hotspur have completed the signing of Savio from Manchester City.

The Athletic reported on Friday that Tottenham had agreed a package worth £85million ($115.9m; €99.3m) for the winger, that will see Spurs pay £75m up front with £10m in potential bonuses, £5m are regarded as highly achievable.

Savio, also known as Savinho, was not included in the squad for City’s 3-0 Community Shield defeat against Arsenal or their 2-1 win over Bournemouth in their Premier League opener.

“It’s taken a while but I’m very happy to be here,” Savio said after his transfer was announced.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity at a brilliant club with one of the best managers in the world.

“As soon as I spoke to the head coach I knew I had to come. He told me he wants to help me reach the highest level, and I believe we can do that together, as a team.”

The Athletic reported earlier this month that Tottenham were advancing in talks for Savio and his former City team-mate Omar Marmoush.

Savio is Spurs’ seventh signing of the summer and their first attacking addition. Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes and Jan Paul van Hecke have all arrived for a combined £229.5m, while defenders Marcos Senesi and Andy Robertson, as well as backup goalkeeper Martin Dubravka joined as free agents.

The Athletic reported that the Brazil international was set to sign a five-year contract at the club. Tottenham’s interest in Savio dates back to last summer, when they held talks with City over a package worth in the region of €50m, but City did not want to sell the player and signed him to a new contract in October.

Savio joined City in 2024 from Troyes, a French side who are also owned by the City Football Group. He appeared 53 times for City, scoring twice and providing 12 assists, though he was used sparingly in the Premier League last season, making just seven starts.

Tottenham lost their first league game of the campaign 3-0 at Brentford and are next in action against Championship side Charlton Athletic in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday, before returning to league action against Newcastle United on Saturday.

How did Brentford sign Mamadou Sangare for less than £50million?

The 24-year-old midfielder stole the show in Brentford’s 3-0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur on the opening weekend of the new Premier League season. On his first appearance in English football, Sangare overshadowed Spurs’ £100m club-record signing Sandro Tonali and Lucas Bergvall.

This was supposed to be the day when Spurs officially kickstarted a new era under Roberto De Zerbi, but Sangare gleefully ruined it, prompting Brentford fans to chant his name to the tune of Whitney Houston’s 1987 hit single I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me). Former Spurs and Liverpool midfielder Jamie Redknapp described him as a “revelation” on Sky Sports.

The average price tag for a central midfielder has skyrocketed recently. Arsenal and Chelsea kickstarted the trend in the summer of 2023 when they both spent over £100m to sign Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo respectively.

On top of Tonali, Spurs spent £85m to prise Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United. Manchester City broke the British record transfer fee with their £116m move for Elliot Anderson. Carlos Baleba was substituted at half-time on four occasions and underperformed for Brighton & Hove Albion last season, but Manchester United are still set to pay up to £70m to sign him. And Arsenal spent a similar amount on Bruno Guimaraes earlier this month.

Brentford’s purchase of Sangare will cause dismay in recruitment departments across the division. Scouts use data to prevent players like Sangare, who spent time in Belgium and Austria before spending a single season in France with Lens — who finished second in Ligue 1 under now Crystal Palace manager Pierre Sage — from slipping through the cracks.

Despite Paris Saint-Germain’s embarrassment of riches, Sangare was named in Ligue 1’s team of the season last year, winning the Prix Marc-Vivien Foe as the top African player in the division.

Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal have prioritised Premier League experience when upgrading their central midfield options this summer, which has worked in Brentford’s favour. Brentford broke their club record to sign Sangare, but he already feels like a bargain. And a contact around the player says it was technical director Lee Dykes who was the driver of the move, especially around the presentation the club made to the player.

The west London side’s midfield has been over-reliant on Vitaly Janelt and Mathias Jensen since they were in the Championship, and Sangare has provided the fresh impetus they desperately required. Now it makes sense why they were not worried about losing Jordan Henderson to Chelsea.

Markus Katzer, Rapid Vienna’s sporting director, told The Athletic earlier this month that Sangare is “a mix between a No 6 and a no 8” who “can dribble and find solutions in really tight spaces”. Katzer added, “winning the ball is his biggest strength.”

He must have forgotten to mention Sangare’s eclectic passing range. In the seventh minute against Tottenham, Sangare’s clever line-breaking pass led to Keane Lewis-Potter whipping a dangerous cross into the box. Moments later, Sangare’s slick one-two with Dango Ouattara ended with Lewis-Potter giving Brentford the lead. He used to arrive at Rapid Vienna’s training sessions on an electric scooter wearing a pair of Crocs; now he speeds past elite players for fun on the pitch.

“He is such a humble guy, hard-working, but he is absolutely unbelievable and a joy to play with every single day and all credit to him,” Lewis-Potter told a group of reporters, including The Athletic, after the game. “He’s someone who I can link with as well and try to build a relationship with him.”

Sangare’s pirouette and backheel just before half-time created a chance for Ouattara. In the second half, Spurs’ goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky failed to properly clear Sangare’s fierce half-volley, which allowed Michael Kayode to put Brentford 3-0 up.

There were other moments which demonstrated Sangare’s intelligence, including overlapping his team-mates to distract defenders and create more space. Brentford’s goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher called him “superb” and captain Nathan Collins knew he was talented “straight away”.

“He is a great player but also a really good person which is really important for what we want to do,” Collins added. “Off the pitch he’s really good and enjoys life at Brentford. I think that shows in his football.”

Sangare is an instant fan-favourite, which is encouraging because some of Brentford’s recent high-profile signings needed a lot more time to make a positive impression.

Igor Thiago suffered a knee injury which ruined his debut campaign, Mikkel Damsgaard underwent multiple surgeries across his first two seasons, Lewis-Potter bounced around different positions before showing his true value as a left-back, while Collins made two errors which led directly to goals in a 4-1 defeat by his former club Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The evidence — albeit just one game — suggests Sangare will avoid those teething issues.

“It’s been really nice working with him and I think the club deserves a lot of credit for getting that deal done,” head coach Keith Andrews said in his post-match press conference. “A lot of clubs, I’m sure, were looking at Mamadou. We were pretty keen to get that deal done and you have seen today what he is capable of, the attributes that he has.

“He has slotted in really well and adapted really well. You never know, different league, different language, even though his English is pretty impeccable, he is just a humble young man who is very hungry.”

Maybe everybody is getting slightly carried away by his performance. De Zerbi said Spurs “are not a team yet” because some of their most important players are injured or working their way back to full fitness after featuring in the latter stages of this summer’s World Cup, including new captain Micky van de Ven, Pedro Porro and Mohammed Kudus.

Even so, given Brentford have come narrowly close to qualifying for European competition for the first time in their history in the last two seasons, Sangare might provide them with the extra sprinkle of quality they need to get over the line.

If there was ever a game to snap you out of a summer haze of Tottenham Hotspur optimism, Saturday’s 3-0 opening-day defeat to Brentford was it.

Tottenham were outfought and outplayed by a Brentford side who, after an outstanding season last year, may have hit a new apex. They were everything Tottenham were not at the Gtech Community Stadium: coherent, powerful, quick and decisive in the final third. While Brentford look to be edging closer to the finished article under Keith Andrews, Roberto De Zerbi is still stuck on his introduction.

Out of context, it was a poor enough performance to revive memories of last season before De Zerbi joined, when Spurs looked rudderless and on their way to the Championship under Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor. Even when you consider their busy summer, with incoming and returning stars lacking match fitness after a World Cup and injury-disrupted pre-season preparations, the result remains concerning.

Here, The Athletic analyses three key points and asks whether fans should be patient or panicked after Tottenham’s first game of the 2026-27 Premier League season.

The performance

Tottenham and Brentford are at very different points. Under Andrews, Brentford are a well-oiled machine. They were among the league’s biggest overperformers last term. Their team is settled and only three of their players were at the World Cup, giving the majority of their squad full pre-seasons. Mamadou Sangare, the only summer arrival to break into their starting line-up on the opening day, appeared to be worth every penny of the club-record fee it took to sign him from Lens.

Beating Eintracht Frankfurt 7-0 in a pre-season friendly last week underscored Brentford’s seamless transition after a successful 2025-26 season. Tottenham’s preparations have been much less straightforward. De Zerbi referenced Spurs’ pre-season tour of Sydney and Auckland in his post-match press conference, suggesting they “could not work in the right way” due to the travel demands and explaining how it limited Micky van de Ven’s involvement in pre-season and caused him to miss the opening day. According to De Zerbi, the centre-back “suffered a problem during the pre-season in Australia, I don’t know, the flight, I don’t know, something, not a big problem, but not right to work”.

They were also without Pedro Porro, who only returned to north London last week after winning the World Cup with Spain. Mateus Fernandes was limited to 45 minutes, replacing Lucas Bergvall at half-time, with Tottenham’s medical team taking extra care with him owing to a minor injury on tour, while De Zerbi started with a front line of Mathys Tel, Richarlison and Mikey Moore, none of whom are expected to be consistent starters.

Perhaps only four players (Antonin Kinsky, Jan Paul van Hecke, Andy Robertson and Sandro Tonali) who started against Brentford would make De Zerbi’s best XI, provided the expected deals for Savinho and Omar Marmoush are completed and several starters return to full fitness.

It was far from an ideal start to the season but Brentford are well ahead of Tottenham in conditioning and chemistry, and that showed.

Should we have seen more of ‘De Zerbi-ball’?

In his post-match press conference, De Zerbi said, “(Spurs) need time to become a team”.

“We are much better than we showed today. From Wednesday, we can show our qualities and who we are.

“We have to analyse the situation. The improvement we have to do, every one of us, because we lose and we win together.”

Tottenham lacked a winner’s edge in duels and fell well short in quality and incisiveness in possession. These are the footballing characteristics of ‘De Zerbi-ball’, and Spurs did not embody those principles.

There were moments in pre-season when Spurs appeared to make strides in those areas, most notably in their impressive first-half performance in the 2-1 win over Chelsea in Sydney. But even in beating Hoffenheim 3-0 last week, De Zerbi conceded that the team was “not at the right point”.

Again, the limited number of available starters and their disrupted pre-season preparations hurt his ability to build a team in his image, but they were worryingly far from where they needed to be. Van Hecke and Marcos Senesi were recruited to help De Zerbi implement his style, but Brentford took advantage of their lack of pace and aerial presence as a centre-back partnership.

Losing, again

In the same way that winning becomes a habit for table-toppers, losing becomes second nature for teams struggling towards the bottom of the Premier League.

Last season, Tottenham lost 17 league games on their way to finishing two points from the drop. Two seasons ago, 22 of their 38 league games ended in defeat. One of De Zerbi’s greatest challenges at Tottenham was transforming a culture that had become too accustomed to defeats, and he appeared to make strides during his seven-game stint. Their opening-day defeat, however, suggests he has a lot more work to do to shift a club accustomed to losing matches.

Archie Gray, who started with the armband after captaining the team throughout pre-season, recognised the team needed to show more fight in a post-match interview with Sky Sports.

“They just outfought us,” Gray said. “Some days a team will just outfight another team and for whatever reason we weren’t (as) up for the fight as they were, and that’s on us. For the fans — they were incredible — to let them down like that in the first game, there are not really words for it. We need to bounce back from that.”

Tottenham Hotspur have spent significantly this summer but Roberto De Zerbi’s side were comprehensively beaten by Brentford on the opening weekend of the Premier League season.

Spurs have committed to spending nearly £250m on transfers already this summer, with a deal worth up to £85m for Savinho agreed with Manchester City and one for his team-mate Omar Marmoush progressing too.

De Zerbi gave four players their competitive debuts for Spurs in defenders Andy Robertson, Jan Paul van Hecke and Marcos Senesi, with Sandro Tonali starting in midfield. But there is understandably work to do before they look a team and Brentford raced into a 2-0 lead in little over half an hour with Keane Lewis-Potter and Vitaly Janelt scoring.

De Zerbi made two changes at the break with Mateus Fernandes making it five Spurs debuts but Brentford struck again, with Michael Kayode finishing after the impressive Mamadou Sangare, making his Premier League debut, had his shot saved.

De Zerbi saved Spurs from relegation last season but looks to have a big job still to do to turn their fortunes around.

The Athletic’s Jay Harris and Liam Tharme break down the key talking points.

What went wrong for De Zerbi?

Firstly, he picked a team packed with technical quality against an opponent known for its physical dominance. And De Zerbi knew that. This was his fifth Premier League match against Brentford and he’s only beaten them once.

Kevin Danso would have offered more protection, particularly against Igor Thiago and Kevin Schade. Brentford won 12 of the 18 first-half aerial duels and 64 per cent of their long passes found a team-mate.

Similarly, the hold-up striker role handed to Richarlison suited Dominic Solanke much better. Richarlison does his best work running into space and isolating centre-backs out wide. He does not have the strength of a back-to-goal target man which was exposed for Brentford’s second goal, when Antonin Kinsky played through the press to him, and Kristoffer Ajer dispossessed the Brazil forward with ease.

The pick of Conor Gallagher at No 10 was a curious one because this was the one position where De Zerbi opted for physicality. He tried to correct the error at half-time, switching the yellow-carded Gallagher for Mateus Fernandes, but the damage was already done. Lucas Bergvall, who lost a duel in the build-up to the second goal, was hooked too.

At no stage did Spurs get a grip on Brentford’s set pieces — which falls on specialist coach Andreas Georgson — including the third goal by Kayode on 49 minutes, which sealed the win. There’s a root cause here too: Spurs have now failed to win for 35 Premier League matches when going 1-0 down, losing 27 of those, and last won from such a position in November 2024.

Liam Tharme

How good is Mamadou Sangare?

This was supposed to be the day when Sandro Tonali demonstrated why Spurs spent a club-record £100m to sign him from Newcastle United. He was completely overshadowed by Mamadou Sangare on his Premier League debut and cost half the price.

Brentford bought Sangare to replace Jordan Henderson. It seemed strange at the time that Brentford were not particularly bothered about losing the 36-year-old to Chelsea but now it all makes sense. Sangare is elegant in possession and unafraid to stick his foot in. In the first 10 minutes, Sangare sent Spurs a few warning signs with some clever line-breaking passes and his ability to effortlessly glide past tackles.

The Mali international created Lewis-Potter’s opener almost single-handedly. He picked up the ball, exchanged a slick one-two with Dango Ouattara and burst into the box before picking out Lewis-Potter with a perfectly weighted pass.

Sangare continued to be a nuisance with Tonali and Lucas Bergvall powerless to contain him. Just before half-time, Senesi was the favourite for a loose ball until Sangare produced a beautiful pirouette and nudged it with his backheel into the Ouattara’s path.

De Zerbi sacrificed Bergvall and Gallagher at half-time for £85m signing Fernandes and Rodrigo Bentancur yet the situation became even worse. Sangare’s half-volley from the edge of the box led to Kayode’s goal and then Bentancur gave away a penalty for fouling Schade. Igor Thiago hit the post to limit the damage.

It looks like Brentford have found themselves another hidden gem in the transfer market.

Jay Harris

Spurs have spent about £250m. What more do they need?

This humbling defeat reminded everybody why they Spurs have more work to do in the transfer market. Van Hecke and Senesi had difficult debuts but the defence will be improved significantly when Pedro Porro and Micky van de Ven return to full fitness. Fernandes’ promising second-half cameo suggests he could forge a strong partnership with Tonali in central midfield.

It was painful to watch Spurs attempt to create chances. Richarlison was ineffective at holding the ball up and connecting with team-mates while Gallagher lacks the creativity to function as a No 10. Mikey Moore wasted three great chances to score in the second half before being replaced by James Maddison.

Maddison tried his best but is still finding his feet after recovering from two ACL injuries. The only player to emerge with any credit is Robertson for whipping multiple excellent crosses into the box.

Signing Savinho from Manchester City will give Spurs a versatile winger who can provide competition and cover for Mohammed Kudus and Mathys Tel. Yet Marmoush is potentially the more exciting acquisition.

Spurs have lacked a quality centre-forward since they sold Harry Kane to Bayern Munich three years ago. Solanke has struggled with injuries over the last 18 months and will need to rediscover his sharpness. Marmoush’s speed, two-footedness and flexibility could offer Spurs a wildcard option upfront and open up several interesting tactical approaches. Spurs just need to hope Marmoush and Savinho have not been put off by this underwhelming performance.

It should be pointed out that five years ago Brentford beat Arsenal on the opening day of the season. Arsenal were missing several of their key players, handed debuts to a couple of new signings and spent more money before the window closed that year. Arsenal went on to finish fifth under Mikel Arteta. Spurs will be hoping history repeats itself and that by the end of the season this will also be viewed as a freak result.

Jay Harris

What next for Brentford

Tuesday, August 25: Birmingham City (away), Carabao Cup, 8pm UK, 3pm ET

What next for Tottenham Hotspur?

In total, 22 former players came to the ‘Alumni Lunch’ at the Tottenham Hotspur training ground on August 13.

The oldest of those meeting the current players were the two 81-year-olds, Pat Jennings and Phil Beal, veterans of Bill Nicholson’s team of the 1960s. There were players from the Keith Burkinshaw era, too: Steve Perryman, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Hughton, Mark Falco and Graham Roberts. There were winners of the 1991 FA Cup, Erik Thorstvedt, Gary Mabbutt, David Howells. And more modern greats, from Les Ferdinand to Jermain Defoe to Michael Dawson.

Between them all there were a combined 6,509 Tottenham appearances and 41 major trophies. It is hard to remember a greater concentration of combined Tottenham wisdom, Tottenham understanding, in any given room at any time.

After they watched training — as far as was possible given it was the hottest day of the year — the veteran players had lunch with the current Tottenham squad, and head coach Roberto De Zerbi. Giving them a rare chance to share with what in some cases were players young enough to be their grandchildren what it meant to them to play for Spurs.

Behind this was a simple idea, one that has been a big part of Tottenham’s busy summer: to reconnect the club to its past, to remind everyone of its roots and the people who had come before them. Which is why there has been a new focus on ‘Legacy Numbers’, for both the men’s and women’s teams, to place every individual player in the long line of those who came before them.

Next month Tottenham will relaunch their ‘Hall of Fame’ by the players’ tunnel in the new stadium, with new inductees in addition to the current 45.

All of this might sound very obvious. Or, worse than obvious, like heart-warming shareable PR content to juice the mood on the eve of the new season. But the reality of Tottenham Hotspur in the last few years is that the club has become unmoored from any real sense of what it means to be Tottenham. And one of the big questions and challenges for the club going into this new season is to finally reconnect.

The face of the club now is Roberto De Zerbi, who will start his Tottenham tenure in earnest on Saturday with the opening weekend trip to Brentford. He was an enthusiastic participant in the ‘Alumni Lunch’ and his football — attacking and innovative — is integral to this Spurs resembling a true Spurs team this season.

But ultimately the solution to this has to be bigger than just one person. Because the problem is itself so deep, something that has grown and grown since Tottenham moved into their new stadium in 2019, if not before.

The story of modern Tottenham has been the story of near-constant resets, relaunches, rethinks, restructures, reboots, reviews and even returns, in the case of Fabio Paratici’s three months back as a co-sporting director last season.

And hanging over every single one of these attempts to draw a line under the recent past and start afresh has been a question: What is this football club trying to be?

In simple terms, it has always felt as if Tottenham Hotspur was being pulled apart by at least two competing impulses. Should it be a club that leans into its roots, its traditions, the local area, historical expectations about its style of play? Or should it instead look boldly out to the world, unencumbered by tradition, ruthlessly adopting the best practices that have worked elsewhere?

Too often in the past Tottenham have sacrificed the former in pursuit of the latter. You may date it from the move of stadium, or the decision to replace Mauricio Pochettino with Jose Mourinho seven months later, but it has been the dominant theme at Spurs for years.

Too often after that Tottenham’s starting point was to look at something that worked well somewhere else — in a different club, in a different environment — and try to copy it themselves. Like when they brought in Paratici and paired him with Antonio Conte, hoping to be as competitive as Juventus. Or when they brought in Scott Munn from City Football Group to be their first and only ever Chief Football Officer. Or even last summer when their response to the magic of Bilbao was to become Best Practice FC again, and hope that Thomas Frank could replicate the distinctive culture of Brentford in N17.

Up until recently, the internal messaging at the club was that they should aspire to be the most exciting football club in the world. Which is a nice idea but says nothing at all about Tottenham. That brand advice is now being replaced.

Even in the moments in recent years when Tottenham felt the opposing impulse to be true to themselves, it did not last. In May 2021, Levy, bruised by the sacking of Mourinho, wrote his famous message about Tottenham “DNA” and promised a return to “free-flowing, attacking and entertaining” football. But one month later, he appointed Nuno Espirito Santo. Two years later, Levy appointed Ange Postecoglou and proudly said at a fans’ event, “we’ve got our Tottenham back”. And yet Postecoglou was not fully backed in the market, and after his second season he was gone.

It took the whole club — after Levy’s departure last September — staring over the precipice of relegation to force yet another change of direction. And of course, over the last seven games of the season, De Zerbi kept them up.

It would be a generous stretch to read too much long-term strategy into the decisions of last season. The only thing that mattered was staying up, rather than any long-term football vision. And yet the end result of all this, the lucky place that Tottenham have stumbled into, is starting this season with perhaps the perfect manager to build a team that looks like Spurs.

The two best and most successful Spurs managers of recent years, Pochettino and Postecoglou, both arrived with distinctive original conceptions of the attacking football that they wanted to play. And with the strength of personality to deliver them, convincing the players and fans that their way is right.

De Zerbi seems to have both of those things. He also has more backing in the market behind him than any Tottenham manager before. The pieces are there for him to build a team that the fans will recognise as their own, with its own innovative style. Something that Spurs have not had since those opening months of Postecoglou, three years ago.

No one is expecting miracles this season, even with hundreds of millions of pounds worth of new players in the team. But Pochettino and Postecoglou each finished fifth in their first season at the club, and given all the investment, that ought to be a reasonable target. Especially if that sense of unity and alignment that marked the final weeks of last season is maintained through this one.

This particular relaunch, this reconnection with the values of the club, needs to stick.

Roberto De Zerbi has confirmed that Micky van de Ven will be Tottenham Hotspur’s new captain.

Previous skipper Cristian Romero left the club earlier this month, joining Atletico Madrid in a £34.1million ($46m) move.

De Zerbi confirmed during Friday’s press conference that Van de Ven will be joined in the club’s new-look leadership group by Pedro Porro, who will be vice-captain. Ben Davies, James Maddison and Archie Gray will serve as third, fourth and fifth captains, respectively.

The captaincy for the Netherlands international follows him committing his future to the north London club with a new long-term contract earlier in August.

He joined Tottenham in August 2023 from German side Wolfsburg in a deal worth £43m including add-ons and has featured 96 times since then, helping the side win the Europa League in 2025 under Ange Postecoglou and ending a run of 17 years without a trophy.

Romero was named captain by De Zerbi’s predecessor Thomas Frank last summer.

The Argentina international attracted criticism last season for two red cards on the pitch and more than one apparent swipe at Spurs’ ownership.

Van de Ven will miss Spurs’ opening game of the new Premier League season against Brentford on Saturday, with Porro and Pape Matar Sarr also set to be absent.

Van de Ven excelled with responsibility

Van de Ven wore the armband for the majority of De Zerbi’s season-saving seven-game stint last term, after Cristian Romero was ruled out for the remainder of the season with a hamstring injury sustained in the 1-0 defeat to Sunderland. In his absence, Van de Ven, whom De Zerbi has talked up as the best left-sided centre-back in Europe, stepped up and played the best and most consistent stretch of the season.

Playing under De Zerbi not only seemed to liberate him as a footballer, gaining more responsibility as a ball-player, but also allowed him to step into Romero’s shoes as the team’s main leader, and he excelled in both areas.

After signing a new long-term contract at the club, Van de Ven can be fully invested in without doubt over his future. Having only turned 25 this year, he is entering the early part of his prime years, and handing him further responsibility as club captain will hopefully help him grow in stature within the club as both a character and a player.

The rest of his leadership team picks itself. Maddison would have been an appropriate choice for club captain, but already assumes the role of a unifier within the squad and is willing to front up to the media when results are poor. As a fan favourite, handing him the armband would have gone down well in the terraces, but it probably has little effect on his character or responsibilities.

After winning the World Cup with Spain, Porro is the type of character and player Tottenham should be looking to build around in the prime of his career. Having him as part of the leadership group is another positive development, after not being selected for a similar position under Thomas Frank and Ange Postecoglou.

Davies is a club stalwart and has been among the team’s leaders since Postecoglou’s appointment, while Archie Gray has worn the armband throughout pre-season, and may do so again against Brentford, deputising for Porro who is not yet fit for the squad. Last season, De Zerbi identified Gray as a future club captain, and this is another move to signify his belief in the 20-year-old.