Tottenham Hotspur manager Roberto De Zerbi has earmarked Italian compatriot Sandro Tonali as his priority midfield target, with "positive talks" reported to have already taken place with the player’s camp.
Many Newcastle United supporters have accepted that Tonali will move on in short order, although few expected to potentially be losing him to a side coming off the back of such a wretched Premier League season.
Spurs were perilously close to succumbing to a stunning relegation, with only the work of De Zerbi after he was appointed at the end of March steering them clear of West Ham United and the Championship abyss.
The Lilywhites have quickly gotten to work to ensure that whatever happened last season is never repeated, picking up Andy Robertson and Marcos Senesi from Liverpool and Bournemouth on free transfers, and the signing of Tonali would be a serious statement of intent.
Tonali Open to North London Switch
Newcastle are set to embark on a mini-reset this summer. While manager Eddie Howe remains in the picture, Anthony Gordon has moved on to pastures new with Barcelona and Tonali could soon follow the Englishman out the door.
The Italian has previously been linked with Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United, but multiple sources state Spurs have now entered the race.
The Athletic’s David Ornstein is among those to report that Spurs and the player’s entourage have held positive talks, though there has not yet been any contact with Newcastle, who are expected to demand a mega fee for the former AC Milan star’s services.
The Magpies value Tonali immensely, and may force Spurs to cough up as much as £85 million ($114 million). They paid AC Milan £55 million ($74 million) in 2023, so Newcastle are expected to make a tidy profit if a sale does go through.
Spurs are far more advanced in completing the deal than any of Tonali’s other suitors. Despite back-to-back 17th-place finishes, the north London remains an attractive destination, even for one of the Premier League’s best midfielders.
Why Spurs Want to Sign Tonali
This is a transfer being engineered by Roberto De Zerbi, who holds considerable power in N17 after steering the club to safety.
Robertson and Senesi are already in, but they were potential deals that pre-dated De Zerbi. Now, the Italian is starting to get to work.
Tonali isn’t too dissimilar from midfield profiles Spurs already have, but put simply he‘s better than them. The 26-year-old isn’t the pass-first, build-up orchestrator many believe the Lilywhites need, but he offers so much across the board. He‘s a menace out of possession and more forceful with it. The early-career Andrea Pirlo comparisons proved to be erroneous, but Tonali has become underrated with the ball.
Having resurrected Tottenham’s decrepit engine room down the stretch last season, De Zerbi could coax the very best out of Tonali, who grew up in Lodi, Lombardy—an hour’s drive from Brescia, where the Spurs manager was born.
So while he’s not the utopia midfield profile Spurs are after, the Lilywhites would nonetheless be getting a hold of a tremendous footballer who contributes so much in all phases. The price will be steep, though, and some will argue whether his acquisition would be the smartest allocation of resources.
For De Zerbi, it is, and that’s seemingly the only opinion worth anything right now.
