Tottenham Hotspur spent a whopping 100 million pounds on Sandro Tonali, who arrives at N17 with a Serie A title winning pedigree to a team that has very few players with the past experience of being a champion at the highest level of football.
But amidst high expectations and coming off the back of a great preseason, Tonali could not help Spurs avoid embararssment against Brentford in the 2026/27 Premier League season opener, with Spurs falling 3-0 to a far less expensive team.
While Tonali was far from the worst offender on the pitch and probably stood no chance with Lucas Bergvall and Conor Gallagher alongside him in the middle of the park, the reality is that, at an individual level, Tonali was quite awful, too.
Sandro Tonali did not look like a floor raise for Tottenham
Tonali struggled with the physicality and directness of Brentford, failing to win possession or cover adequately defensively, and his passing was far too pedantic and sideways. He was putting on the worst of a Thomas Frank Clinic on Saturday afternoon, creating nothing of note for Tottenham Hotspur.
It is early days, of course, but a harsh realization is settling in for the Tottenham Hotspur supporters, and that is the fact that Sandro Tonali is not someone who can raise the floor of this team, which is maybe what many were hoping for with a 100 million pound defensive midfield investment.
Surely, things will get much better for Tottenham once Mateus Fernandes and James Maddison are in the midfield XI with Tonali, but the fact that Tonali could not at least help Spurs salvage something against lowly Brentford, with all due respect to the underdogs, is a big problem. Because it means that Tonali is likely a midfielder who can help an already strong team be even stronger and pursue great things, but if he does not have the ideal conditions or Madders and Fernandes are out again, he can't be the one to pull up playersl like Lucas Bergvall and Conor Gallagher.
Tonali can change that narrative, of course, because the early season narratives are born out of the smallest sample size possible. But Tonali was like this earlier in his career, too, including at AC Milan before the Rossoneri built a real team around him under Paolo Maldini.
Tottenham and Roberto De Zerbi will have to challenge Tonali to do more in terms of raising the floor of the team and being more active, because they paid him to do more. But that was a disappointing introduction to Tottenham for sure.
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