Tottenham Hotspur gave Roberto De Zerbi full control over transfers this summer window, and he turned it into 380 million pounds of spending that has yet to yield dividends in terms of actual results with Spurs winless in five Premier League matches at the September international break and also out of the League Cup after just two games.
One of De Zerbi's boldest and his first controversial decision was selling Luka Vuskovic to Brighton after an insane debut season in the Bundesliga while on loan at Hamburg, in which he was a Bundesliga Player of the Season candidate behind Ballon d'Or favorites Harry Kane and Michael Olise. De Zerbi sold Vuskovic to Brighton for the same amount of money he bought Jan Paul van Hecke for, even though Van Hecke was older, coming off a worse season, and only had one year left on his contract anyway. And it wasn't even like Spurs were forced to sell Vuskovic either; he wanted to go, but, like Lucas Bergvall, the manager could have convinced him to stay.
Instead, Spurs are watching Vuskovic start off his Premier League career at Brighton strongly, proving the doubts about him translating from the German top flight to the English one. And through eight appearances for the Seagulls, Luka Vuskovic has a match rating of at least 7.5 in seven of those matches with only one below 6.0.
Tottenham have reason to second guess Roberto De Zerbi
Meanwhile, Jan Paul van Hecke has been strong in his own right, particularly in terms of his passing. As Roberto De Zerbi advertised, Van Hecke is the best passing center back in the Premier League right now, bar none. But his defending has been more inconsistent than Vuskovic's.
Van Hecke has a match rating above 7.5 in two of his six appearances for Tottenham compared to seven of eight for Vuskovic. He's also had a rating below 7.0 in three games, though he's never had a rating below 6.0, which Vuskovic did have one game like that.
While the jury is still out on whether or not De Zerbi was justified in signing Van Hecke since the Dutchman has played well overall after a shaky start, Vuskovic has been much more consistent and at a younger age. That's enough to keep making some Tottenham Hotspur fans wonder whether or not it was worth giving so much power to De Zerbi and listening to him, given he cost them one of the biggest young gems in world football.
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