Sandro Tonali cost Tottenham more than any player in the club's history, and the slow start to his debut season is already drawing pointed criticism — per The Spurs Web, former Spurs player Chris Waddle has called him average, while Tonali's agent has been explaining publicly why the midfielder chose a club that came within a point of relegation last season. That is the condition the recruitment decision sits inside: a historic outlay on a central midfielder, at a club now bottom of the Premier League on two points from five matches, with five players — Jan Paul van Hecke, Pedro Porro, Dejan Kulusevski, Mykhailo Mudryk and Xavi Simons — carrying injury concerns ahead of Saturday 10 October's trip to Old Trafford, per Football London. The fit Tonali is supposed to buy is a midfield capable of controlling matches at 60 percent possession; the trade-off the injury list imposes is that the shape surrounding him remains unsettled before the ink on the first team selection has dried. Conor Gallagher's two goals in four appearances across the Premier League and Carabao Cup are the closest thing this squad has produced to a consistent attacking return, which tells you something about how far down the role hierarchy the goals are currently coming from. Old Trafford will test whether Tonali's influence — and the selection De Zerbi can field around him — is beginning to match the decision that brought him here.
The supporters who pack into Old Trafford's away end on Saturday 10 October will do so knowing that Roberto De Zerbi's system is still a promise, not yet a result. Eight goals conceded across five Premier League matches — an average of 1.6 per game — is the most urgent evidence of what hasn't clicked yet. The shape has possession on its side: 60 per cent of the ball, per season averages, which means De Zerbi is getting the control he wants in principle. What that possession isn't buying is defensive security when transitions break down, and the 2-3 home loss to Aston Villa demonstrated exactly that instability. Conor Gallagher, the team's leading scorer with two goals in the Premier League and Carabao Cup combined, is generating from midfield in a way that fits the system. The identity is forming. Whether the trust has been earned yet — by a fanbase sitting 20th with two points — is the question that travels to Old Trafford.
Two points from five Premier League games is a condition, not a slump — it reflects a club that chose to build around Roberto De Zerbi's possession model before the model had the personnel to execute it at this level. The arrival of Jan Paul van Hecke, whose Nations League display drew sharp criticism in the Dutch press per The Spurs Web, and the weight of expectation on Sandro Tonali — whose price tag, per The Spurs Web, Tonali himself has acknowledged as a daily pressure — tell you where De Zerbi's authority ends and where the institution's decisions begin. Three goals scored and six conceded across the three-game window this paper has been tracking is not a finishing problem or a defensive problem in isolation; it is what happens when a system demands coordinated movement and two or three roles within it are still being learned by players adjusting to new environments. Conor Gallagher's two goals are the only evidence that the shape is generating anything final-third-facing; Sávio's one goal and one assist, and the two assists from Mateus Fernandes, fill the rest of the ledger. Old Trafford on Saturday 10 October — against a Manchester United side sitting on five points from five games and conceding at the same rate Spurs are — will not settle the debate about De Zerbi's authority over his own roster, but it will settle whether the shape can function away from home before it functions at all.
Tottenham's tackle volume — 18.40 per Premier League game, the highest of the two sides in this fixture — is the one number Roberto De Zerbi's system has delivered consistently across five games, yet it has not translated into defensive security: six goals conceded across the three most recent matches, against Everton, Liverpool, and Aston Villa. The gap between defensive activity and defensive outcome points to a structural problem in how the team converts ball-winning actions into sustained shape, though the season-so-far sample is small enough that a single tactical adjustment could revise the picture. Tottenham Hotspur travel to Old Trafford on Saturday 10 October for a current fixture that will test whether the side's verified run of three losses from five Premier League outings reflects a settled defensive pattern or a correctable stretch of form. Conor Gallagher's two goals this season represent the sharpest attacking output on the roster from open play, and his presence in that midfield is the most concrete forward variable to watch at Old Trafford.
Tottenham's structural problem this season has not been a shortage of possession — their 60.0% average across five Premier League games confirms they routinely control the ball — but a failure to convert that control into goals at one end while conceding at a rate, 1.60 per game in the Premier League, that erases every point it might otherwise earn. Roberto De Zerbi's side sit bottom of the Premier League on two points, and per The Spurs Web, his decision to leave Mathys Tel out of the squad against Aston Villa was tactical rather than injury-related, which means the choices in the final third are deliberate — and so far, those choices have produced Conor Gallagher as the side's leading scorer on two goals across the Premier League and Carabao Cup combined, with no one else above one. Across the three-game window of the 0-0 home draw with Everton, the 1-3 away loss to Liverpool, and the 2-3 home loss to Aston Villa, Tottenham scored three and conceded six — a goal difference of minus three in a fortnight that left the shape of the problem unchanged. Old Trafford on Saturday 10 October, against a Manchester United side that has conceded eight and scored eight in five games, is the fixture that will test whether De Zerbi's final-third structure can actually deliver, or whether the possession numbers remain a ceiling rather than a foundation.
Two points from five Premier League games is not a slow start — it is last place, and Roberto De Zerbi inherited a defensive structure that was always going to be rebuilt before it could be trusted. The summer brought Jan Paul van Hecke and Andy Robertson and Tosin Adarabioyo through the door while Cristian Romero and Kevin Danso departed, per The Spurs Web, and the 2-3 home loss to Aston Villa at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on 19 September — three goals conceded in front of their own supporters — is that reconstruction showing its seams in real time. Conceding six times across the three most recent results, against opponents ranging from Liverpool in the Carabao Cup to Villa in the league, tells you the back line has not yet learned how to be a unit under De Zerbi's demands; Conor Gallagher's two Premier League goals this season represent the one bright structural thread in the attack. Football London reported on 27 September that Pedro Porro, Dejan Kulusevski, Mykhailo Mudryk, Xavi Simons and Wilson Odobert are all carrying injury concerns, which means the question De Zerbi cannot defer lands at Old Trafford on Saturday 10 October — whether this defensive shape is stable enough to hold without the full complement of players it was designed around.