What Tottenham can expect from Federico Fazio

Late this afternoon Tottenham Hotspur confirmed the signing of Sevilla centre-back Federico Fazio on a four-year deal.

Many Tottenham fans will admit that they had not heard of the defender, let alone see him play before we were linked with him joining us.

We’ve gone to our man in the know, those Twitter users among us will be familiar with the Valencia-based Spurs fan, Spurspanyol who is our resident La Liga expert.

Here’s what he had to say about Tottenham’s latest signing.

Federico Fazio is an old school centre-back with a continental twist and in more ways than one is a very able replacement — and improvement — on the departing Michael Dawson.

He’s not shy of putting in a tackle and isn’t going to bottle a 50-50 header with anyone.  Some tall players tend to be quite poor in the air but he takes advantage of his 6’5” frame.  There won’t be many that get the best of him.

It’s true that he isn’t the fastest but there aren’t many mobile 6’5” players in football. I would argue that his ability to read the play and sense danger makes up for that lack of pace to his game.

Fazio is also very comfortable on the ball, as well as being familiar with a high pressing game so is a good fit for Pochettino’s system of total football.

He offers something different to the other defenders on our books.  Both Vertonghen and Chiriches struggled against the more physical sides of the Premier League last season and Kaboul hasn’t been the same since his injury.  He adds that extra bit of steel and leadership we’ve been lacking at the back.

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