Former Tottenham scout says Spurs have fallen into the trap of ‘second choice’ spending

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Tottenham Hotspur’s summer business is coming under a lot of scrutiny after the club’s poor start to the season.

Spurs showed ambition in the transfer market, breaking their previous transfer record (£65m for Dominic Solanke) three times over the course of the window.

However, Tottenham have only managed two draws and three defeats at the start of the new campaign and only just managed to score their first Premier League goals against Aston Villa.

Several pundits have criticised Spurs’ summer business over recent days, and one former club official has said their signing of one midfielder personifies where the Lilywhites have fallen short.

Former Tottenham scout questions spending £100m on Sandro Tonali

Former Tottenham senior scout, Bryan King, believes the North Londoners have not shopped for elite players but rather in the bracket below.

He pointed to Arsenal’s acquisition of Bruno Guimaraes and Spurs settling for Sandro Tonali as an example of where De Zerbi’s men have gone wrong.

King said about Tottenham’s summer business to Football Insider: “I just look at the side and I think the money that they’ve spent, it seems to me as though they’ve got the second choice on the next batch of quality players that have been moved during the summer.

“You know what I mean? I mean, look at the two main players that left Newcastle, Guimaraes and Tonali. Tonali cost £25m more than what Guimaraes did, and for me, Tonali isn’t the player that Guimaraes is. Guimaraes was the heart of Newcastle; Tonali wasn’t.

“I just think if you’d have signed Guimaraes and gone for him, I don’t think Arsenal would have gone for Tonali, that’s for sure. It just seems desperate. ‘Let’s appease the supporters by showing that we’re going to buy these players, we’re going to spend the money.'”

Tonali is getting too much flak from the media

While Tonali may not have the greatest of starts to his Tottenham career, it feels like the Italian is getting unfairly scapegoated by parts of the media.

The former Newcastle man has already showcased glimpses of why De Zerbi was extremely keen to get him through the door.

Tonali is extremely competent in duels and making recovery runs to protect the defence, while he has already shown that he is more than competent in possession.

While one can feel that Spurs have overpaid a bit for the 26-year-old, it can be argued that he was the third-best proven central midfielder on the market this summer after Elliot Anderson and Guimaraes.

The question that fans need to ask is whether they would swap Tonali for a cheaper signing like Carlos Baleba or Nico Gonzalez, and one suspects most Spurs fans would not.

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