Bentancur’s control keeps Tottenham’s midfield ticking

Tottenham spent something in the region of £185m rebuilding their midfield this summer, and the man still getting picked is the one they already had. Sandro Tonali arrived from Newcastle in a deal that could rise to £100m, while Mateus Fernandes joined from West Ham for £85m. Despite that outlay, it’s Rodrigo Bentancur who has started three of Tottenham’s first four matches this season.

The recruitment didn’t stop with those two. Conor Gallagher arrived from Atletico Madrid for £34m back in January, and Xavi Simons came in from RB Leipzig for £51.8m last summer to play the No 10 role – though he’s currently out with a knee injury. Add in Fernandes’ club-record fee, Lucas Bergvall being retained after Spurs turned down big money for him, and James Maddison finally back from his own knee problem, and Roberto De Zerbi has more midfield options than he knows what to do with. He’s turned to Bentancur in three of four games anyway.

Bentancur gives Spurs the control the new midfield needs

The reasoning isn’t sentimental. At Nottingham Forest, in a goalless draw that produced Tottenham’s first clean sheet and first point of the league season, Bentancur’s reading of the game was central to shutting down Forest through the middle. He’s the one who shows for the ball under pressure and finds a full-back first time, rather than taking the extra touch that gets a team punished.

Put simply, according to the primary reporting, nobody else in the squad does the anchoring job – the one that lets everyone else play forward – as well as he does.

The early results point to a formula of Bentancur plus two

At Brentford on the opening day, Tonali, Bergvall and Gallagher couldn’t handle the physicality of the hosts. Spurs only found any foothold once Fernandes and Bentancur were introduced, by which point the game was already gone. Against Charlton in the League Cup, Bentancur anchored while Bergvall and Fernandes pushed on, and Spurs won 5-1.

He then started against Newcastle alongside Tonali and Fernandes in a 2-0 defeat, and against Forest alongside Tonali and Gallagher in that clean sheet. Some of this is simply early-season experimentation – this is a newly assembled midfield, after all, and the process of working out who plays with whom is ongoing, a theme that also touches on how the squad hierarchy has shifted with fresh arrivals.

Experience that has survived repeated rebuilds

Bentancur signed from Juventus in January 2022 for £15m and has racked up 151 Spurs appearances since – a fee that looks almost comically small set against this summer’s spending. He’s the joint-longest-serving outfield player at the club alongside Ben Davies, now in his 13th season.

He’s also survived plenty: most of 2023 lost to an ACL injury, three months out last season with a hamstring problem. And he was central to the Europa League run, starting six of the seven knockout games on the way to Bilbao, before being reunited with Joao Palhinha to help keep Spurs up.

Verdict

None of this guarantees Bentancur a starting shirt every week – De Zerbi is still rotating, still experimenting, and £185m of midfield investment doesn’t sit on the bench forever. But until Tonali, Fernandes or anyone else can match his reading of the game and his experience under pressure, the rebuild keeps starting with the player Spurs already had.