The date has been circled on Sandro Tonali‘s calendar ever since he completed his £100million move to Tottenham in July.
‘Newcastle second game, really I can’t wait to play,’ said Tonali in his first interview as a Spurs player, enthusing for the club’s inhouse media about a transfer that made him feel 16 again and explaining his ‘close to magic’ connection with Roberto De Zerbi.
He remains the biggest investment of a summer spree now nearing £400million, after a double deal for Savio and Omar Marmoush from Manchester City were completed this week. But following the emphatic defeat at Brentford on the opening day, when the 26-year-old Italian was strangely anonymous in a midfield dominated by the Bees’ new boy Mamadou Sangare, the Newcastle fixture looms larger than ever for Tonali.
He was signed to be a figure of authority in midfield. To enrich Spurs with more power and industry, to add tactical acumen without forgoing technical poise and restore a balance they lost in recent years.
‘Definite links to (Andrea) Pirlo’, as his former Newcastle boss Eddie Howe once said. ‘And it’s not just the hair.’ Howe also came to value Tonali’s influence out of possession, ‘putting out fires’ as much as on the ball.
Against Hoffenheim in pre-season, Tonali looked every inch that player. He set the Spurs tempo and oozed class, and Lucas Bergvall grew in stature alongside him. But friendlies can be deceptive and when the real business started in the Premier League neither he nor the team could rise to the intensity required.
Sandro Tonali was signed to be a figure of authority in Tottenham’s midfield and help to restore a balance they lost in recent years
The £100m summer signing will go up against his former club Newcastle on Saturday
The fixture looms larger after Tottenham’s heavy opening day defeat away against Brentford
Data from the Brentford game suggests it was not for lack of effort. Only Vitaly Janelt clocked more metres than Tonali’s 11,948. Only two players on the pitch had more touches. Only two could claim more ‘line-breaking passes’ and he featured prominently in the pressing statistics for Spurs behind Richarlison and Conor Gallagher.
Brentford ensured the game was played on their terms, however, which is a sign of a good team. They won comfortably, scored three and it could have been more.
While the £100million fee is not Tonali’s doing it commands attention. Eyes fell upon the club’s record signing to see if he had the strength of personality to seize the game, give it a shake and disturb its rhythms in Spurs’ favour, and it turned out he could not.
De Zerbi blamed the defeat and the atrocious display on too many players ‘not in the right physical condition’. He issued a reminder it would take time for the team to find its spirit and organisation. Then he excused Tonali and Marcos Senesi from the Carabao Cup second round win over Charlton on Wednesday to train instead. ‘Sandro has to work to feel better in terms of physical condition,’ said De Zerbi.
Reasons why Senesi might be behind the fitness curve were perfectly clear. He played in the World Cup final for Argentina against Spain on July 19 and missed a chunk of pre-season. Tonali did not go to the World Cup because Italy failed to qualify for the third time in a row and has been with De Zerbi for the entire pre-season.
Only four of the Spurs starting XI at Brentford last weekend played at the World Cup, accumulating 901 minutes between them. Manchester City started against Bournemouth with eight players who had 3,351 World Cup minutes in their legs.
As fans wondered how their team could appear quite so undercooked, De Zerbi noted the extra time off granted to some players, including Rodrigo Bentancur, and the disruption of a pre-season tour to New Zealand and Australia. It was not a full-scale complaint, but he had already mentioned that captain Micky van de Ven had an injury that was something to do with one of the flights.
Others picked up injuries during the tour, including new £85million midfielder Mateus Fernandes, Dominic Solanke, Destiny Udogie and James Maddison. None were too serious but enough to interfere with fitness programmes and convince De Zerbi to start with them on the bench on the opening weekend.
De Zerbi left Tonali out of Tottenham’s Carabao Cup win in midweek to work on his fitness
Tottenham have been boosted by the signings of Savio and Omar Marmoush this week
‘At the beginning of Australia we played every three days,’ said the Spurs boss when quizzed about Tonali before the Charlton game. ‘The trip was 25-26 hours and the day after we couldn’t work in the right condition.
‘When we came here (back to London), we couldn’t work immediately because there was a friendly game against Getafe. In the last two weeks, the players from the World Cup came and we worked in different situations, but I think he needs more time, like JP (van Hecke).’
Van Hecke had less than three weeks off between returning home from the World Cup and setting off on the tour Down Under and admitted the schedule had taken its toll on him and others.
‘Physically, of course, it impacts your body,’ said the £54million summer signing from Brighton. ‘I also struggled for one or two weeks after and that’s not ideal.’
All of which served as a useful reality check on expectations after a summer of Spurs spending, but five goals against Charlton’s reserves in the Carabao Cup, a dazzling goalscoring debut for Savio, the subsequent arrival of Marmoush and the pursuit of Cody Gakpo from Liverpool might send them soaring again ahead of the first Premier League home game of the season.
It is the one Tonali has been waiting for against Newcastle, who emerged from weeks of turmoil to impress in a 2-2 draw with Liverpool on Sunday. He will not want to disappoint again.
