The New York Times

There was a time, not that long ago really, when Tottenham Hotspur were synonymous with frugality. The knock on the club, and foremost on their erstwhile chairman Daniel Levy, was that they had money but wouldn’t spend it. Cash-rich. ‘Ambition’-poor.

That is a tougher argument to square now.

The signing last week of Mateus Fernandes and the arrival on Monday of Sandro Tonali rubber-stamp the new reality in the blue-and-white half of north London: Tottenham are spending big. For some time, the only player they’d ever committed a guaranteed fee in excess of £50million for was Tanguy Ndombele, who joined from Lyon in 2019. But with these latest recruits, they will have spent over £50m on five separate transfers in a year.

Fernandes’ £85million purchase from West Ham United smashed the club’s transfer record when it was announced on Thursday. Tonali, an initial £92.5m recruit on his way from Newcastle United, has gazumped his new team-mate in short order. If £7.5m in add-on clauses crystallise, the latter deal will make Spurs only the fifth English club to spend £100m on a player.

Even by the standards of modern English football, Tottenham’s outlay is eyebrow-raising. Inside the first three weeks of the summer window, they have committed a reported £230million on three signings. Add unreported agent fees and the Premier League’s transfer levy of four per cent on every incoming transfer, and their splurge tops a quarter of a billion pounds. The club’s single-season record is £272.2m (in 2023-24).

Or it was.

Following the signing of defender Jan Paul van Hecke from Brighton and Hove Albion for £52million before the end of the 2025-26 accounting year, The Athletic projects Spurs’ spending on new players landed just shy of £300m last season. On a net basis, we reckon around £240m was spent, comfortably higher than the club’s previous record of £180.1m (again set in 2023-24). Mere days into July, a further £200m or so has been committed to bringing in Fernandes and Tonali.

Big spending is hardly new in the Premier League, but seeing it unfold at Tottenham rather jars with the club’s recent on-pitch malaise. For a time, there was genuine concern, even expectation in some quarters, that they could be in the 2026-27 Championship. Relegation was no distant possibility; at one stage it was knocking at the door, holding a scythe.

Such a calamity was avoided. But financially, there was still reason for concern.

An uptick in overall Premier League prize money meant Spurs earned around £8million more from domestic distributions in 2025-26 than a season earlier, despite finishing 17th each time, but several of their peers saw far greater growth.

They’ll hope to improve considerably on those takings in 2026-27, but missing out on European football for the coming season will sharply reduce takings elsewhere.

Tottenham earned an estimated £74.3million in distributions from last season’s Champions League, where they made the round of 16, and more on top from takings at the turnstiles. In 2022-23, their previous Champions League campaign, they earned £8.8m in gate receipts from four European home games. Three years on, with higher ticket prices and an extra fixture at their place, this figure will have been even higher.

Those declining revenues pair with a previously shaky-looking cash position.

Spurs had just £20.4million cash on hand at the end of June 2025, a near £180m reduction in two years. Servicing big transfer spending accounted for much of that, with more to come: at the same date, they owed other clubs £242.8m in net transfer payments, one of the largest such figures in football. That was before they spent a net £159m more in the market last summer, and then went again in the winter window and over recent weeks.

Champions League money will have helped pay the bills last season, but the greater factor has been a shift in strategy at the top of the club. After two decades of parsimony, ENIC, the firm that holds a majority ownership stake in Spurs, is now pumping funds in.

Spurs took on almost £900million in external debt to build their world-class stadium in the second half of the 2010s, but since then, external funding has arrived from shareholders. That began in 2022 but has ratcheted up more recently. Following a £100m share issue last month, ENIC, and principally the Lewis family, who own the company, have provided £235m cash in 18 months.

That was the second £100million injection inside a year, and Tottenham also brought forward a big chunk of Premier League monies last September, ostensibly to meet cash flow needs. That amount is expected to have been repaid in-year, so won’t have added to the year-end debt pile, but there’s been clear choreography to ensure sufficient cash is in place — something which, for a very long time under ENIC, was not really a worry.

Large-scale owner funding has helped enable what we’ve seen so far this summer, and it’s uncertain whether ENIC’s commitment will end there. Public sight of that transfer bill is a year out of date, but it is unlikely to have been reduced. It may be that more funding from the Lewises is needed. The family’s ability to do so at least looks assured; 12 days following the June £100m injection, an auction of items from patriarch Joe Lewis’ art collection at Sotheby’s raised £296.3million, according to The New York Times, a London record for the sale of artworks from a single owner.

Fans of other clubs might also wonder how Spurs can afford this activity while remaining within football’s financial rules. Yet a relative lack of liquidity (at least prior to ENIC’s funding) bears little relevance to compliance, with football’s regulations previously focused on keeping losses low and, now, trained on how much clubs spend on their squads.

The losses at Tottenham have rocketed in recent seasons, though much of that owes to a huge depreciation charge on the stadium — an expense which is deducted from loss-based calculations. They have dipped into underlying deficits too, but those are not so large that they’ll have trouble with the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), which, in any case, will cease to operate once clubs are assessed on the recently ended 2025-26 season.

UEFA, European football’s governing body, still employs a loss-based ‘football earnings’ rule, and Spurs will be cognisant of that should they return to continental competition down the road. But, again, recent football earnings figures at the club have been well shy of the limit UEFA sets.

More pertinent just now is the squad cost rule (SCR) that will be in operation both domestically and abroad from 2026-27 onwards. The likelihood is Tottenham will aim to stay under UEFA’s stricter 70 per cent limit — whereby clubs can only spend 70 per cent of turnover plus averaged player profits on player and coaching wages, amortised transfer fees and agent fees — but even at that lower level, they have scope for manoeuvre.

Much to their supporters’ chagrin, Spurs have routinely operated one of the lowest wages-to-revenue figures in both English and European football.

In 2024-25, a season where they were without Champions League football, just 45 per cent of revenue went on total wages. The amount spent on players, relevant for SCR purposes, is even lower. Clubs don’t release player wage details but, per a UEFA report in 2022-23, Tottenham’s player wages were just 32 per cent of turnover.

Even with growing amortisation costs on transfer fees, total wages and amortisation as a proportion of revenue in 2024-25 was just 70 per cent. That also doesn’t include the averaged player profits that are added into the SCR calculation. In other words, they have plenty of headroom.

For all Spurs will miss European income, their 2024-25 revenue would still have been £520million even if we strip out their Europa League prize money and home gate receipts from the competition, over £100m higher than every non-‘Big Six’ club, and around £30m higher than Chelsea’s turnover that year. SCR rules are pegged to revenue, so high-earning clubs like Spurs can spend far more than others. Non-football events generated £32.5m at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2024-25, more than the total matchday income of 11 Premier League clubs.

That helps explain how, alongside ever bigger transfer spending, Spurs in their post-Levy era (he surprisingly departed as chairman last September) are paying bigger wages. For years, they outperformed a wage bill that sat at the bottom of the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’. Recently, they have dramatically underperformed on that basis.

While owner funding and a low starting base for squad costs have given Tottenham plenty of spending scope, there is a limit to that.

As mentioned, it is unclear if more cash will need to be poured in; though it almost certainly will if Champions League football goes begging for too long. Also, player sales will take on added importance. Spurs’ shoddy transfer business of recent years has made that infertile ground. Even in 2023-24, when Harry Kane, a pure-profit academy graduate, went to Bayern Munich for a big fee, they collectively sold players for less than it had cost to buy those individuals.

There are signs of that changing.

Recouping £35million on Brennan Johnson when he went to Crystal Palace in January was seen internally as decent business, while the recent deal agreed to sell Luka Vuskovic to Brighton is better still. Vuskovic, who joined in summer 2025 for £12m but was without a Spurs first-team appearance to his name having spent last season out on loan, will head to the south coast for a guaranteed £46m, or only £6m less than went the opposite way for Van Hecke.

There are likely to be other sales this summer too, with Cristian Romero, Lucas Bergvall and Guglielmo Vicario among the players widely speculated as possible departees. The Athletic reported on Sunday evening that Radu Dragusin is set to join Fiorentina on a season-long loan, with the deal turning permanent should a minimum number of appearances be met.

Tottenham’s past reticence on transfers has brought this summer into sharper focus, though it’s also an outdated notion given they’ve been spending a lot on signings for a while now. Perhaps it stems from what we might term the club’s paradox of performance: when they spent (relatively) little, they did well on the pitch; since they’ve started splashing out, they’ve largely done badly.

Last year’s Europa League final triumph is the glaring outlier which proves the rule there, but for the most part, Spurs’ big spending has not translated to improved performance.

Such missteps have resulted in the club shifting away from the old self-sustaining model, and big funds are flowing from the owners.

They will strongly hope that money gets spent better than before.

Tottenham Hotspur have completed a club-record deal to sign midfielder Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United.

The 26-year-old has signed a six-year contract with the north London side, in a deal that The Athletic reported this week could be worth £100million ($133m).

He becomes the second player within days to break the club’s transfer record after Mateus Fernandes also joined Spurs from West Ham United in a deal worth around £85million (€98m, $112m). Tottenham’s previous record fee was the £65m ($87m) they paid for Dominic Solanke from Bournemouth in August 2024.

The Athletic reported on July 1 that Tottenham had reached an agreement with Newcastle the Tonali move. The deal comprises an initial £92.5m and an additional £7.5m in proposed add-ons based on multiple Champions League qualifications.

Tonali’s arrival continues a busy summer at Spurs following their second-successive 17th-placed Premier League finish. The Italy international is their sixth signing of the window, after Andy Robertson, Martin Dubravka and Marco Senesi arrived as free agents, Jan Paul van Hecke joined from Brighton & Hove Albion for £52m, and Fernandes completed his move on Thursday.

Tonali made 53 appearances for Newcastle in all competitions last season, scoring three times, as they finished 12th in the Premier League and reached the last-16 of the Champions League.

He joins a deep pool of midfield options for Tottenham which includes Conor Gallagher, Rodrigo Bentancur, Pape Matar Sarr, Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall, though the Sweden midfielder has informed the club of his desire to seek a new challenge elsewhere. The Athletic reported Bergvall, 20, is a contender to replace Elliot Anderson at Nottingham Forest.

Tonali is the second high-profile exit from Newcastle this summer after Anthony Gordon joined Barcelona in a deal worth around €80m (£69.3m; $93.2m) in May. Bruno Guimaraes has been the subject of a verbal offer from Arsenal worth less than £60m, as reported by The Athletic.

After moving to the north east from Milan in July 2023 for a fee in the region of £60.5m, Tonali received an immediate 10-month suspension in October of that year after being found guilty of breaching rules on gambling by the Italian Football Federation. Since his return in August 2024, he has made 110 appearances for Newcastle, scoring 10 goals and proving 10 assists.

Statement signing for Spurs

Analysis by Tottenham Hotspur correspondent Elias Burke

Tonali is among the very best central midfielders in the Premier League. Having finished 17th in successive seasons, Tottenham beating competitors, including Manchester City, to sign him at a club-record fee is another strong signal of intent that the Lewis family is serious about contending next season and beyond after the arrival of Fernandes.

Having shone for Newcastle last term in various roles in central midfield, Tonali appears a strong fit for Roberto De Zerbi as he looks to revamp Tottenham’s squad in his image. He is technically secure, an impressive athlete and an ambitious passer, which should help Tottenham’s protracted issues with central progression.

He also shares a strong personal connection with De Zerbi, having progressed through the Brescia academy, the town where the Spurs head coach was born and raised.

With four signings in defensive areas, Fernandes and Tonali provide steel and plenty of technical quality to their midfield. With attacking reinforcements still on the agenda, indications suggest that their business is far from done as the club looks to return to contending for Champions League qualification.

How are Tottenham affording this?

Analysis by football finance expert Chris Weatherspoon

Spurs’ signing of Tonali will take their spending this summer to around £230million and, once other fees are added, beyond the quarter-billion-pound mark. It is a massive outlay for a club which ended each of the past two Premier League seasons just one spot above the drop. Spurs single-season record spend on new players is £272.2m in 2023-24.

Of course, those finishes represented massive underachievements, and this flurry of activity — they have also added hefty wages by snaffling Andy Robertson and Marcos Senesi on free transfers — is a clear sign Spurs have little intention of repeating them. So too was the news, reported by The Athletic on June 25, that owners ENIC had poured in a further £100million in cash via a share issue.

ENIC, controlled by the Lewis family, have injected £235m inside 18 months, as Spurs have shifted away from being largely self-sustaining. The north London side have been hefty transfer spenders since completing the build of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in 2019, and such spending had caught up with their bank balance. At the end of June 2025, Spurs had just £20.4m cash on hand, and owed a net £242.8m on transfers, one of the largest such debts in football.

Owner funding has softened those cash concerns, and such troubles are entirely separate from the compliance issues which plague others.

Spurs have long maintained a low wages-to-revenue ratio, meaning they’ve had significant headroom under squad cost ratio (SCR) rules. That SCR leeway has only broadened for 2026-27, when Spurs won’t play in Europe and so won’t be subject to UEFA’s 70 per cent limit; the Premier League’s own SCR limit, newly introduced, is set at 85 per cent.

Naturally, they want to get back to the Champions League as soon as possible, so they can’t entirely ignore UEFA’s lower limit. Nor can they ignore the European governing body’s loss-based football earnings rule, even as the Premier League has dispensed with its profitability and sustainability rule (PSR). Spurs lost £120.6m in 2024-25 and while that was heavily impacted by stadium depreciation, which is excluded from the football earnings calculation, their underlying financials have slipped into the red. They were once the most profitable club in England.

In other words, that ENIC funding has enabled this splurge but there will come a limit without more organic fundraising. Some of that is already in evidence: the sale of Luka Vuskovic to Brighton will generated a guaranteed £46m, or just £6m less than it cost to bring Jan Paul van Hecke the other way last month. The Vuskovic sale follows the £35m departure of Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace in January, while striker Alejo Veliz has just departed for Brazilian side Bahia, too.

Optics bad, but this is Newcastle’s financial reality

Analysis by Newcastle United correspondent Chris Waugh

When it comes to the pure optics of Newcastle agreeing to sell Tonali to Spurs, having already sold Anthony Gordon to Barcelona in May and having lost Alexander Isak to Liverpool last summer, then they are really not good.

Spurs finished 17th in each of the past two seasons and, while Gordon and Isak leaving was frustrating, that was also understandable. Tonali opting to move to a rival, who finished lower in the table and are completely rebuilding, does not send out encouraging noises.

However, this is the financial reality Newcastle are operating within. Gordon had to be sold for Newcastle to try and comply with UEFA’s financial rules, having already accepted a fine for breaching them previously.

Tonali’s sale will allow Newcastle to reinvest, with a goalkeeper, at least one full-back, two midfielders and an attacker on the agenda for head coach Eddie Howe.

Losing Tonali and Gordon before a first-XI signing has arrived is not great. But Newcastle are confident this gives them the capacity to significantly strengthen the squad now.

Time will tell. They need incomings and quickly to turn the mood.

Tottenham Hotspur defender Radu Dragusin is set to join Fiorentina on a season-long loan deal with an obligation to buy permanently, should a minimum number of appearances be met.

Spurs, who will retain a 10 per cent sell-on clause for the Romania international, are in the process of overhauling their central defensive options this summer. They have already signed Jan Paul van Hecke from Brighton & Hove Albion and and Marcos Senesi from Bournemouth.

Separately, Brighton have agreed a deal to sign Spurs centre-back Luka Vuskovic in a deal worth up to £50million.

Dragusin’s game-time over the past 18 months has been severely restricted following an anterior cruciate ligament injury.

He started 21 out of 22 games for Spurs in all competitions between 30 October 2024 and 26 January 2025, and the one game he did not start, against Chelsea, he came on after 15 minutes.

However, the 24-year-old then suffered an ACL injury in his right knee which ruled him out for 11 months and he only returned to the pitch in December 2025.

Dragusin featured 11 times in the second half of the 2025-26 campaign for Spurs, but was behind Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Kevin Danso in Roberto De Zerbi’s pecking order.

‘Good business for Spurs’

Analysis by Sebastian Stafford-Bloor

Clearly Tottenham’s recruitment this summer has been focused partly on their defence and the arrivals of Van Hecke and Senesi relegated Dragusin, who was already a back-up option, further down the pecking order. In that light, for Spurs to get a significant fee for a fifth-choice centre-back is good business.

Additionally, it seemed unlikely that Dragusin had the attributes to play for De Zerbi. The Italian coach emphasises ball progression, which is not among the Romania international’s strengths; he’s not a searching passer, nor is he a dynamic carrier.

Tottenham have publicly stressed the need to become better sellers and, having already sanctioned the departure of Vuskovic to Brighton (for a fee that could eventually rise to £50m), this is another piece of business aimed at extracting value for a player of limited immediate use.

Very few players suffer back-to-back top-flight relegations, only to become one of the Premier League’s most expensive signings.

Yet that was how much Tottenham Hotspur — and particularly head coach Roberto De Zerbi — appreciate a player who was twice outstanding among his team-mates despite first Southampton’s and then West Ham United’s struggles to survive.

Spurs agreed a guaranteed £85million ($113.5m) deal with West Ham for Mateus Fernandes this week, meeting their east London rivals’ asking price for the most highly valued member of their squad.

They were far from the only admirers and, in a significant coup, won a race against Manchester United, who pushed hard to add the 21-year-old to their midfield rebuild but were not prepared to meet West Ham’s valuation.

As the Premier League season drew to a close and West Ham’s top-flight status appeared increasingly precarious, the club accepted that Fernandes would be sold to help fund their summer recruitment, whether they dropped into the Championship or not.

Paris Saint-Germain registered an interest and held talks but did not make an offer.

Fernandes was also raised as a potential target in internal meetings at Real Madrid. Fernandes and Jose Mourinho share an agency in Gestifute, led by Jorge Mendes. Yet as with PSG, Madrid did not formalise their interest with an approach.

Senior Madrid sources — who, like others in this article, remain anonymous to protect relationships — would later play down a move for Fernandes, or any midfielder, as the club are prioritising sales, believing they already have too many players in that position.

That left Fernandes likely to remain in the Premier League, with Manchester United’s interest initially the most advanced.

Manchester United elevated Fernandes to their priority midfield target towards the end of the season, once it became clear that Nottingham Forest’s demands for first-choice Elliot Anderson would be too steep and that his likely destination would be Manchester City.

In early June, Old Trafford’s leadership were reluctant to meet West Ham’s demands, but serious competition from north London made their hopes of reaching a compromise more challenging.

Tottenham’s awareness and interest in Fernandes dated back to his days in Sporting CP’s youth setup. Fernandes scored against Spurs in a UEFA Youth League fixture in September 2022, before making the second senior appearance of his career at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as a second-half substitute in a 1-1 draw in the Champions League the following month.

Spurs continued to track him as he established himself in Sporting’s first team, and serious consideration was given to a move last summer following his impressive displays after joining Southampton.

According to one Tottenham source, De Zerbi’s admiration was key in advancing that interest and establishing Fernandes as a priority. Spurs have approached this summer window with a determination to back their head coach, and to be ruthless and decisive in their pursuit of targets.

Talks were mediated by Mendes, who acted on behalf of his client and as a broker in club-to-club negotiations with Tottenham and Manchester United, alongside his long-time associate Valdir Cardoso.

At Manchester United, director of football Jason Wilcox and director of football negotiations Matt Hargreaves led the talks. Additional support, on the player’s side, came from their club captain.

Bruno Fernandes helped with attempts to persuade the 21-year-old that Old Trafford should be his next destination. When asked who his biggest idol is, Mateus Fernandes named the Manchester United captain in an Instagram post Spurs published on Thursday.

Despite that connection, Tottenham became increasingly confident of signing Mateus Fernandes after a meeting with West Ham officials last Saturday.

According to one source, Fernandes was convinced by Tottenham’s offer, believing he would play a significant role under De Zerbi, whose playing style could maximise his potential.

There is delight at Tottenham over what, alongside the £100m agreement for Newcastle United’s Sandro Tonali, represents a pair of significant coups.

Recruitment processes are described as clearer and more aligned following the departures of Daniel Levy, the former executive chairman who was deposed in September last year, and ex-managing director of football Fabio Paratici.

Carlos Raphael Moersen, Tottenham’s new director of football operations, is cited as a key influence on contracts and payment structures following his arrival from the City Football Group, Manchester City’s parent company, in January.

At Manchester United, there is surprise at Tottenham’s newfound ability to spend and compete at the highest end of the market. The Lewis family, the north London club’s majority owners, injected £100m to provide fresh working capital last month, following a previous £100m injection last October.

As talks entered the final stages, United were prepared to match West Ham’s demands through add-ons and there was some expectation United would close the deal this week, but they were ultimately unwilling to pay the asking price as a fixed fee.

As Spurs decisively closed the agreement with West Ham on Tuesday, some at Old Trafford felt they would have been outbid regardless of how much they offered.Personal terms had not been expected to be an issue for Manchester United, but Tottenham’s salary offer was also viewed as beyond what the Old Trafford hierarchy were willing to commit to.

Discipline has been the watchword during Manchester United’s dealings in the early weeks of this summer’s market, as chief executive Omar Berrada outlined in an end-of-season interview to United’s Inside Carrington podcast.

“It’s very important that you don’t let the market or the agents dictate what we should be doing,” he said.

As well as refusing to match Tottenham’s offer or West Ham’s demands, Manchester United say they never received clear indications that they would be Fernandes’ preference either.

That was in contrast to their targets last summer, when they saw off competition from Premier League rivals for their three marquee signings: Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko all wanted to play at Old Trafford. Without that same, full commitment from Fernandes, United were reluctant to increase their offer to a level that could have found an agreement.

There is a belief at the London Stadium that Fernandes’ fee could have climbed even higher than £85m and that, had they avoided relegation to the Championship, an asking price of £100m would have been possible, with parallels drawn to City’s £116m deal for Anderson and Declan Rice’s £105m move to Arsenal in 2023.

Whether that would have been justified or not, for a player of considerable ability and potential, it is another indication of an inflationary market this summer – particularly for midfielders, and particularly within the Premier League.

In Madrid, time-honoured talk of the Premier League’s spending power now has a new element: ‘the £100m problem’, a phenomenon whereby, they believe, every young, talented player who makes a mark in the English top-flight sees their market value rapidly escalate up to and sometimes beyond nine figures, to a level where even European football’s grandest names struggle to find value.

There is no doubting either Fernandes’ ability or potential, however, which is precisely why West Ham felt able to demand the £85m they will receive, and why Tottenham were prepared to pay it.

Additional reporting: Jay Harris, Laurie Whitwell, Roshane Thomas, Guillermo Rai

“I don’t think we are in a position to spend £100million on a player. That is not the case and I don’t think it will ever be the case for the club.”

So claimed former Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou in October 2024, when pushed on whether Spurs might one day match Arsenal’s £105m outlay on Declan Rice.

Less than two years on, Spurs are about to prove Postecoglou wrong by signing their own £100m midfield general in Sandro Tonali, who is set to complete his move from Newcastle United on Friday.

Tonali will follow the arrival of Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United in an £85m deal to dispel any lingering doubts that Spurs are now an entirely different club to the one Postecoglou knew, far removed from a quarter of a century of financial caution and self-sufficiency under Daniel Levy.

In fairness to Postecoglou, what he probably meant was that Levy would never sanction that kind of spending on a single player, but the Lewis family appear to have upended the former executive chairman’s business model in favour of an ambitious, owner-backed approach since deposing him last September.

Fernandes and Tonali will both smash Tottenham’s previous transfer record — the £65m signing of Dominic Solanke in 2024 — and the club’s willingness to spend big proved too rich for even the market’s traditional heavy-hitters: Manchester United also pursued Fernandes, while Manchester City were interested in Tonali.

Spurs have made signings like Fernandes, 21, before (Michael Carrick, who also joined from relegated West Ham in 2004, was arguably the equivalent at the time) but Tonali is unlike any arrival in the club’s modern history: a world-class player in his prime — the Italian is 26 — who would expect to start in practically any team in the world.

This is a new era at Spurs, who are finally behaving like a ‘big six’, billionaire-backed club.

Levy deserves some credit for putting Spurs in a position to finally spend lavishly after building the stadium and years of balancing the books — including maintaining the Premier League’s lowest wages-to-turnover ratio — but Spurs’ decline since 2019 illustrated the diminishing returns of his strategy.

If his friend Simon Jordan, who paraphrased a message allegedly from the former Spurs chairman on Talksport earlier this month, is to be believed, Levy thinks Spurs had their “pants pulled down” over the £52m signing of Jan Paul van Hecke, who had a year remaining on his Brighton & Hove Albion contract — another telling insight into how dramatically things have changed.

It is natural for some supporters to share these concerns about the huge sums now being spent — Spurs’ record of big-money deals is dreadful and some, such as Tanguy Ndombele, have hamstrung the club for years — but most fans will feel they have earned this splurge after years of watching their rivals demonstrate more ambition in the market.

If there are genuine concerns or downsides to Spurs’ ambition, it comes in the sacrifices the club is also preparing to make this summer.

Brighton are set to send the Van Hecke money straight back to north London with the £50m signing of Spurs’ Luka Vuskovic, who is regarded as one of the best up-and-coming centre-halves in Europe.

The 19-year-old has not kicked a ball competitively for Tottenham and they have moved to insure the sale by including a 20 per cent sell-on clause as well as matching rights for any potential future transfer.

The deal is, on the face of it, a canny piece of business for a player who occasionally looked raw while on loan at Hamburg last season (and in Croatia’s 4-2 defeat to England in their World Cup opener) but it is also a gamble given Vuskovic’s obvious talent and potential.

Perhaps more worryingly for supporters is Lucas Bergvall’s determination to leave the club for a new challenge elsewhere. Bergvall, 20, has informed Spurs of his desire for a change, and will have no shortage of suitors across European football — including Nottingham Forest, who are seeking a replacement for Elliot Anderson after his £116m move to Manchester City.

If you had asked any Spurs fan midway through last season which players they would definitely keep at the club, it would have been a short list — but the chances are Bergvall would have been on it.

Supporters have invested a huge amount of emotional capital in the Sweden international, who has shown enough in two difficult seasons in England to suggest he is on course to fulfilling the massive potential that left Spurs vying with Barcelona for his signature in February 2024.

So too Archie Gray, who has reportedly been the subject of an enquiry from Newcastle this week. Spurs deny that Gray, also 20, is for sale but there is a growing sense that other clubs are eyeing their best prospects with optimism that they can be prised away from north London.

There are good reasons for Spurs apparent willingness to sell their crown jewels — books must be balanced, and the squad desperately needs a rebuild — but it is nonetheless a consequence of their new ambition and apparently willingness to hand control to a head coach like De Zerbi (Spurs insist their transfer business is a collaborative process, rather than led by the Italian).

De Zerbi has never stayed in a job for more than three seasons (Spurs is his ninth managerial post) and, understandably, wants proven players who can hit the ground running next season.

Much better for him to have a readymade Van Hecke than wait two to three years for Vuskovic to come of age. So too Bergvall, who is not yet at the level of Tonali or even Fernandes.

Should Bergvall follow Vuskovic out of the Spurs this summer — which remains a big ‘if’ — there really will be no way of knowing in the short term if Spurs have cannily sold two young players to transform a squad that has finished 17th in consecutive seasons or done the equivalent of Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea allowing Mohamed Salah and Kevin De Bruyne to depart.

Only time will tell if the risk of selling off the future to fund the present will pay off.

Clearly, however, Spurs are less likely to regret selling Vuskovic and possibly Bergvall if they remain ambitious in the market for the long term, and continue to make the kind of signings that Postecoglou and his predecessors believed were impossible.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The star striker is sidelined. The stakes are immense. And Mauricio Pochettino steps into a spotlight.

It sounds like 2026, like the challenge facing the United States World Cup team after Folarin Balogun’s red card Wednesday night in a 2-0 win over Bosnia-Herzegovina.

But it is not. It’s April 2019. And this, a seven-year-old scene that suddenly feels pertinent, is evidence that Pochettino, now the U.S. men’s national team coach, has been here before.

Pochettino, then at English club Tottenham Hotspur, was preparing for a Champions League quarterfinal decider, perhaps the biggest game he’d ever coached. And the week before, he’d lost his leading scorer, Harry Kane, to an ankle injury. “It’s very, very sad,” he’d said.

But when he walked into a news conference on the eve of this decisive second leg against Manchester City, he was calm, confident, even jovial.

“We have the belief,” he said, “and we will be strong.”

And sure enough, the following day, Tottenham stunned Man City. Kane’s backup, Fernando Llorente, scored the pivotal goal off the bench. A second forward, Son Heung-min, scored two as Spurs triumphed on an unforgettable night in Manchester.

“Of course, (it’s) better to play with all the players fit and available,” Pochettino said afterward. “(But) you know, football is about the squad, it’s about the collective effort. It’s a collective sport.”

A few weeks later, in the semifinals, that collective also stunned Ajax. Pochettino started Son and Lucas Moura, both natural wingers, as a makeshift front two. Moura scored a second-half hat trick to complete a three-goal comeback and send Tottenham, an oft-overshadowed club with a decade-long trophy drought, to its first Champions League final.

Pochettino leapt and ran euphorically onto the field. He eventually fell to his knees, overcome with emotion. And he proved the point he’ll surely try to make this week.

Yes, the USMNT will miss Balogun when it faces Belgium in the World Cup’s round of 16 on Monday. But it will adapt and can still rise to the occasion.

His U.S. players were already sending that message Wednesday night, because it’s one that Pochettino has been preaching for more than a year.

“We’re definitely a team, we’re more than just one player, we’re more than just 11 players,” defender Chris Richards said Wednesday night.

It’s the message Pochettino sent during the second-half hydration break, minutes after Balogun was shown the controversial red card. “We need to show we are a team, that we are united,” Pochettino said. “That was the moment to show to everyone, to show ourselves, that it’s not only empty words when we say we are a family.”

When asked who would replace Balogun in Monday’s starting lineup, Pochettino gave nothing away.

And in this sense, the 2019 precedent offers few, if any, hints. Circumstances, personnel, tactics and opponents are distinct. Back then, Pochettino had one set of options to replace Kane; now he has another set. He has Ricardo Pepi or Haji Wright as something resembling like-for-like replacements. He has Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie, two attacking midfielders who’ve played up front for their clubs. Moura doesn’t really help us guess which one he will pick — although a setup with Pulisic and McKennie up top, and an extra midfielder beneath them, similar to the team’s alignment against Portugal in March, feels most analogous.

It’s the concept, however, that is most relevant. The Spurs example helps explain his mindset and approach — one that’s been at the heart of his USMNT rebuild.

He has preached to his players that individual names get dwarfed by the collective, that “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” as he told them back in October, relaying a quote first shared with him by Chick-Fil-A chairman Dan Cathy.

“This is one of his biggest things — the team culture, the team togetherness, is stronger than any individual,” U.S. midfielder Brenden Aaronson told The Athletic at the time. “If we’re a team, and we can play like a team, then we can beat anybody.”

That’s why Pochettino took offense some nine years ago when Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola referred to Tottenham as “the Harry Kane team.”

“It’s a sad comment,” Pochettino said at the time. “It was very disrespectful for many people.”

He’d later say that it “didn’t sit well with us because it seemed to diminish the work of the group,” which is part of why there was “enormous value” in Tottenham’s upset of City in the 2019 Champions League.

Seven years later, to be clear, no one is describing the USMNT as “the Folarin Balogun team.”

But similar questions are coming. Balogun has elevated the U.S. with his off-ball movement and goalscoring. None of his backups can stretch and threaten Belgium as he could.

Within the team, though, there is a confidence instilled over many months. It has become almost automatic. It was evident when Pulisic missed time during the World Cup group stage with a calf injury. It reappeared instantly on Wednesday night.

“I mean, of course he’s a great player, he’s our top scorer so far, we’re gonna miss him,” midfielder Malik Tillman said of Balogun. “But I think we have great players who can replace him, give the best they can, and hopefully score some goals for us.”

Richards added: “We’re a team of 26, not just one. Ultimately, we’re gonna miss him for the next game, but we know that if it’s Pepi, or Haji, or whoever (else), they’re gonna do their job just as well as he did.”

And even with Balogun suspended, without any mechanism to appeal, Pochettino reiterated his message to players in a postgame locker-room speech.

Sandro Tonali is set to undergo a medical with Tottenham Hotspur on Thursday ahead of signing a six-year contract to 2032.

The Italian is scheduled to arrive in London from Milan on Thursday afternoon before travelling to Tottenham to complete his club-record transfer from Newcastle United.

The Athletic reported on July 1 that Spurs had agreed a deal that could reach £100million ($133m) for the midfielder. The north London side will pay a £92.5m for Tonali with an additional £7.5m in potential add-ons based on multiple Champions League qualifications. Manchester City had also pushed to sign the 26-year-old.

Spurs have also agreed a deal to sign Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United for £85m – which would also break their transfer record if it is announced before Tonali.

Tottenham are set to add both players to a deep pool of midfielders that includes Conor Gallagher, Rodrigo Bentancur, Pape Matar Sarr, Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall. However, Bergvall has informed the club of his desire to seek a new challenge elsewhere.

Tonali and Fernandes are set to join Spurs’ other summer additions of Andy Robertson, Marco Senesi, Jan Paul van Hecke, Martin Dubravka in a rapidly-improving squad under head coach Roberto De Zerbi.

Tonali recorded three goals and seven assists in all competitions last seasons for Newcastle, helping the side the round of 16 of the Champions League

The Italy international came through the academy at Italian side Brescia before joining AC Milan in 2020, initially on loan before the deal was made permanent the following year. He appeared 130 times for the side before signing for Newcastle for a fee in the region of £60.5m in July 2023, though he received an 10-month ban from football after being found guilty of breaching rules on gambling by the Italian Football Federation.

Tonali appeared 110 times for Newcastle in all competitions, scoring 10 goals and providing 10 assists.

Tottenham Hotspur have reached an agreement to sign Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United in a deal that could reach £100million ($133m).

The north London club stepped up their pursuit of the Italy international late last month by initiating club-to-club contact with Newcastle.

They have now struck a deal which, if completed, would be a new club-record transfer eclipsing the potential £85m they have already agreed to pay West Ham United for fellow midfielder Mateus Fernandes.

Tottenham will pay an initial £92.5m for Tonali, 26, with an additional £7.5m in proposed add-ons based on multiple Champions League qualifications.

Spurs have already enjoyed a busy summer with Andy Robertson and Marco Senesi arriving as free agents and Jan Paul van Hecke joining from Brighton & Hove Albion for £52m.

Tonali and Fernandes will join a deep Tottenham midfield that currently includes Conor Gallagher, Rodrigo Bentancur, Pape Matar Sarr, Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall, though the Sweden international has informed the club of his desire to seek a new challenge elsewhere.

Tonali made 53 appearances for Newcastle in all competitions last season, scoring three times, as they finished 12th in the Premier League and reached the last-16 of the Champions League.

He moved to the club from Milan in July 2023 for a fee in the region of £60.5m, but received an immediate 10-month suspension in October of that year after being found guilty of breaching rules on gambling by the Italian Football Federation.

Tonali subsequently missed the remainder of the season and Italy’s 2024 European Championship campaign.

Since his return in August 2024, he has made 110 appearances for Newcastle, scoring 10 goals and proving 10 assists, forming a strong partnership with club captain Bruno Guimaraes in midfield.

Guimaraes was the subject of a verbal offer from Arsenal worth less than £60m earlier this week which was rejected.

Tonali is not featuring at this summer’s World Cup in the United States, Canada and Mexico after Italy failed to qualify.

Statement signing for Spurs

Analysis by Tottenham Hotspur correspondent Elias Burke

Tonali is among the very best central midfielders in the Premier League. Having finished 17th in successive seasons, Tottenham beating competitors, including Manchester City, to sign him at a club-record fee is another strong signal of intent that the Lewis family is serious about contending next season and beyond after agreeing another club-record deal to sign Fernandes yesterday.

Having shone for Newcastle last term in various roles in central midfield, Tonali appears a strong fit for Roberto De Zerbi as he looks to revamp Tottenham’s squad in his image. He is technically secure, an impressive athlete and an ambitious passer, which should help Tottenham’s protracted issues with central progression.

He also shares a strong personal connection with De Zerbi, having progressed through the Brescia academy, the town where the Spurs head coach was born and raised.

With four signings in defensive areas, Fernandes and Tonali provide steel and plenty of technical quality to their midfield. With attacking reinforcements still on the agenda, indications suggest that their business is far from done as the club looks to return to contending for Champions League qualification.

Optics bad, but this is Newcastle’s financial reality

Analysis by Newcastle United correspondent Chris Waugh

When it comes to the pure optics of Newcastle agreeing to sell Tonali to Spurs, having already sold Anthony Gordon to Barcelona in May and having lost Alexander Isak to Liverpool last summer, then they are really not good.

Spurs finished 17th in each of the past two seasons and, while Gordon and Isak leaving was frustrating, that was also understandable. Tonali opting to move to a rival, who finished lower in the table and are completely rebuilding, does not send out encouraging noises.

However, this is the financial reality Newcastle are operating within. Gordon had to be sold for Newcastle to try and comply with UEFA’s financial rules, having already accepted a fine for breaching them previously.

Tonali’s sale will allow Newcastle to reinvest, with a goalkeeper, at least one full-back, two midfielders and an attacker on the agenda for head coach Eddie Howe.

Losing Tonali and Gordon before a first-XI signing has arrived is not great. But Newcastle are confident this gives them the capacity to significantly strengthen the squad now.

Time will tell. They need incomings and quickly to turn the mood.

Brighton & Hove Albion have agreed a deal to sign Luka Vuskovic from Tottenham Hotspur in a deal worth up to £50million.

Tottenham will receive an initial fee of £46m, with add-ons potentially taking it to £50m. They will also retain a 20 per cent sell-on clause as well as matching rights for any potential future sale.

Vuksovic, 19, is currently at the World Cup with Croatia who play Portugal on Wednesday. The centre-back will undergo a medical after Croatia’s World Cup campaign is over.

The Athletic reported on June 19 that Brighton had made an improved offer for Vuskovic after previously making a £30million ($39.7m) bid.

Spurs and Brighton have already done business this summer, with fellow centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke swapping the south coast for north London in a £52m deal.

Van Hecke has joined a Spurs centre-back contingent which includes Micky van de Ven, Kevin Danso, Marco Senesi, Cristian Romero and Radu Dragusin. Spurs felt they could not offer Vuskovic the first-team minutes he would desire.

Vuskovic spent last season on loan at Bundesliga club Hamburg, where he made 30 appearances in all competitions and scored six goals. He has five years remaining on his Tottenham deal, which he signed after officially joining the club last summer. Vuskovic, who has not yet appeared for Spurs, agreed to join the north London club from Hajduk Split for £12m ($16m) in September 2023, though the move did become official until he turned 18.

Brighton, meanwhile, have already completed a deal for one centre-back, with Pascal Struijk joining from Leeds earlier this week.

Explaining Spurs’ sale

Analysis from football writer Seb Stafford-Bloor

It’s natural to ask why. Tottenham pulled off a coup in signing one of the great centre-back prospects of the coming generation, only to see him leave within 18 months, before he has even played a game for them.

But there is some sense here. It’s clear from Spurs’ summer transfer activity so far, which has included two incoming centre-backs in Jan Paul van Hecke and Marcos Senesi, that playing time would be scarce for Vuskovic. And with the player keen on remaining a starter — as he was in Hamburg — and not eager for a further loan, a move to a club of Brighton’s standing where there is a defensive vacancy is far from illogical.

Having agreed to sign Mateus Fernandes from West Ham for roughly £85m and with further additions planned, this is also a valuable sale for Spurs.

But there are some questions. Vuskovic has so far proven most comfortable in a back-three, whereas Fabian Hurzeler’s Brighton almost exclusively played with a back-four last season. How will that work? Similarly, Vuskovic’s lack of acceleration was noted in the Bundesliga and while he has worked on that flaw and is still very young, the speed of the Premier League will demand a further adjustment.

But what a prospect. He might be among the most physical dominant teenage defenders the modern game has seen and will not struggle at all with that aspect of English football. It’s also not difficult to imagine him heading towards the very top of the game in the next few years, for considerably more money than Brighton are paying now.

It is time, at last, for Tottenham to be serious.

The club will have broken their transfer record if they go on to complete the signing of Mateus Fernandes from West Ham United. The Portuguese midfielder has a progressive profile that Spurs have been lacking for several seasons and so Fernandes’ arrival, for a fee of £85million ($112.7m), would hopefully cure a range of technical problems and make Roberto De Zerbi’s side more potent, more dangerous and — ultimately — more equipped to compete in the Premier League.

But the abstract worth of this moment is more valuable.

The club’s fans have been here before, refreshing social media and begging for updates about a transfer saga that, deep down, they knew would swing in someone else’s direction. Think of Sadio Mane before he joined Liverpool. Eden Hazard before he left Lille and moved to Chelsea. Or, more recently, Eberechi Eze and Antoine Semenyo last summer. They eventually became Arsenal and Manchester City players.

Those situations were not all the same. But if there is a commonality, then it was in knowing — or at least suspecting — that during the hours that mattered most, when it was time pay up and mean business, Spurs would come up short.

They would always have a good reason for doing so. It could be rationalised as deference to the wage structure or another club’s financial advantage, but the result would be the same: no player, no improvement, no steps forward.

Well, not quite no player. One of Tottenham’s worst tendencies over the past few decades was to identify a player, be outmuscled in their attempt to sign him, and then settle for someone cheaper and worse. Less aiming for the moon and landing in the stars, more wanting Mateo Musacchio and instead signing Federico Fazio.

Or nearly signing Joao Moutinho, but actually buying Lewis Holtby six months later.

It was always fine, OK, better than nothing — acceptable because others had it much, much worse.

Deep down, though, those moments were accompanied by the knowledge that it was a corner cut and that, because modern football teams are so good at finding and exploiting each other’s weaknesses, it would come at a cost within one of those games that decides a season.

A botched clearance. A missed header. A pass not seen or a chance not taken.

The point is not to denigrate the players from Tottenham’s past, but to express frustration with the habit with which they are associated — of wanting to be seen as a big club, but without having to actually behave and spend like one. But this is a big-club move. At least in terms of being a deal proportionate to the grandeur of the stadium Tottenham call home and the prices they charge for admission. Those sums matter and on this occasion they add up.

And it’s still June. Spurs have long had the reputation of dalliers. They have always wanted the best deal and if that has come at the cost of a few weeks or even a month, then they were willing to accept that inconvenience. If it meant losing the player altogether then, at times, they would suffer that too.

There’s merit to such prudence and to sensible moves within an industry that does not always behave logically. But that mindset needs to incorporate the realities of Premier League football. It starts in August, not after the first international break in September. New signings always, always benefit from spending pre-season with their new team-mates. And, most importantly, the game is played on the pitch, where the good teams are those that take what they want, when they want it.

Sometimes the price is just the price. It’s not always possible to get the player and to win the deal. Spurs appear to understand that now.

This summer, they have already spent over £50m on Jan Paul van Hecke, who had one year left on his Brighton contract. They have probably overspent. But what is that perception of value actually worth? Is it more precious than an excellent centre-back?

No signing is ever a guaranteed success and Fernandes, like Van Hecke and anyone else moving this summer, will be subject to all sorts of variables that nobody can foresee.

But it is the trying that matters most here — the intent. Supporters are often accused of just wanting success. It’s not true. What they really want is the opportunity to feel as if they are on a journey towards something. That’s why people keep going back, buying tickets or getting up at stupid times in the morning to watch games. All they require in return is evidence that the club want that better tomorrow in the same way.

Tottenham have not always done that and they are not necessarily doing that now. Last season was very nearly an historic catastrophe and the arrival of a single midfielder does not guarantee a long-term change of thinking. But this is different enough to be welcome, and it’s a new way to feel at the end of a story which, with Manchester United lurking, seemed horribly familiar.