Tottenham Hotspur now have a crowded midfielder after having one of the very worst of honestly any club in the Premier League besides the absolute most doomed to relegation ones (like Burnley and Southampton before them) over the past couple of seasons.
Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes are blockbuster signings and combined 185 million pound investments who can start for close to a decade together, and they will immediately come in and be the pillars of the middle of the park for manager Roberto De Zerbi.
But even in the base of the midfield, just two names are not enough. And even as Lucas Bergvall continues to demand a transfer out of N17 with Nottingham Forest highly interested, Spurs still have to love what they have in midfield. Conor Gallagher showed signs of life under De Zerbi after a poor start to his Spurs career as a bloated winter transfer, while young Archie Gray was the official Player of the Season from the fans for his heroics as a young midfielder.
Bentancur still belongs for Spurs
The most intriguing name after the 2026 World Cup, though, just might be Rodrigo Bentancur. He actually started over Gray, who had been much more impressive in the 2025/26 season even under the woeful Thomas Frank, and he proved to be crucial in helping De Zebri pull Spurs over the Premier League relegation hump.
Bentancur's World Cup flew under the radar because of how horrible Uruguay was, but like new Spur Mateus Fernandes, Benta was a case of a defensive midfielder still having a great campaign despite the ills of his teammates. Because whereas Uruguay's main star Fede Valverde was one of the absolute worst players in the tournament as the country crashed out of the group stages, Bentancur was quietly one of the best in his position.
The 29 year old played elite defense with 2.0 tackles and 2.3 interceptions won per game, which are insane numbers. Rodrigo Bentancur also had three combined dribbles completed and fouls drawn per game, showing more quality and spark on the ball as a progressor than he displayed even last season for Tottenham Hotspur. And as a passer, Benta completed around 60 per game for this nightmare Uruguay side.
By standing out and playign so bravely on the ball and defensively for Uruguay when everything was falling apart, just as he did for Spurs at the end of the season, Bentancur, like so many others, is showing that the different side of him he displayed under Roberto De Zerbi may be for real and translatable to more games in the future. He may not be on the bubble after all, but, rather, as important a part of the rotation behind Sandro Tonali and Fernandes as Archie Gray.
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