By OkayGoal
The Lilywhites’ year-long chase for Savinho is finally coming to an end, and Tottenham may be getting two forwards from Man City with Omar Marmoush looking likely to follow.
The two very different versions of Savinho
At Manchester City he played 23 times off the left wing and 26 times on the right, and the roles could hardly have been more different.
On the right, he would start high and drop deep to create separation from his marker, combining quickly and driving into that inside-right channel. Pep Guardiola used his ability to come short and drag defenders with him to open the right channel for others, and that ability to combine in tight areas is exactly the sort of solution De Zerbi values under pressure.
The left-sided Savinho is a completely different player. There, he sits right on the touchline, and where most wingers take a first touch inside or tight to their body to protect possession, Savinho takes it away from himself and directly into a take-on. That is arguably his single best trait. He is technical enough that his first touch does not need to set up the dribble, it can be the dribble, which means he arrives at the byline with space to deliver early, whether that is a cutback or a lofted ball into the box.
On the right, that gets diluted. He beats his man, reaches the byline, but his preference is to chop back onto his left foot, which lets defenders recover and close the angle. It kills the very thing that makes him dangerous. At Spurs, playing left, that problem disappears.
Why Marmoush is leaving City for entirely different reasons
Savinho appears to be surplus to requirements at Etihad Stadium. Marmoush is more of a profiling issue.
City need their number ten to be a genuine creator so Erling Haaland can focus purely on attacking the box. Marmoush is not a creator. He is a shooter, a ball striker, a goalscorer. The player he most naturally replaces at City is Haaland himself, which was never going to happen.
Look at Tottenham’s attack from the Brentford game, or even their strongest available front line, and the gap is obvious. James Maddison’s slick passing, Savinho’s crossing, Mohammed Kudus and his relentless one-versus-one threat. Plenty of creation. Almost no shooting. Where exactly are the goals coming from?
Marmoush answers that. He drifts onto the blind side of his marker and has a genuinely wide finishing range, capable of reversing shots into the far corner or converting half chances that most forwards would waste. Richarlison topped Tottenham’s Premier League scoring last season, but a lot of those came in scrappy late-game situations off the bench, and his fitness record means you simply cannot rely on a consistent stream of goals from him.
Marmoush managed 10 Premier League goals in 37 appearances at City, which is a far more dependable baseline. The way that particular deal has been structured tells you Spurs are not finished in this window either.
How both fit De Zerbi’s actual system
If we look at how De Zerbi generally has his sides build-up, they create fabricated transitions, baiting the opposition out before leaving Tottenham’s attackers in a cluster of one-versus-one situations around the halfway line with enormous space ahead of them. And this is where his ability to find solutions in tight conditions is valuable there.
Marmoush brings something different again, with genuine ball carrying over long distances and a burst of acceleration in open space while keeping the ball close, which lets him push defensive lines back and maintain separation from his marker.
The width piece matters a lot given how Tottenham used a 3-1 shape in pre-season with two players operating in the pockets ahead of it, and for those midfielders to actually receive in those pockets, the opposition midfield has to be stretched by genuine width holders. That is Savinho’s job. Not simply holding width, but standing so wide he forces the defence to spread, opening those pockets. And the moment a pocket player receives, defenders have to shift narrow, which instantly gives Savinho separation to manipulate his marker with small touches before bursting to the byline.
Could Savinho drop deeper for Tottenham?
Sandro Tonali as the deep pivot is not always going to be the best fit with the ball at his feet, especially because he is not the most secure man in possession and partly because his darting runs into the attacking line are genuinely valuable higher up. And Savinho dropping into the middle third at times could add real value, simply because he finds ways out of tight conditions.
That is not suggesting Savinho plays as a number six, to be clear. But in transition, or when Spurs want more rotation in midfield, him arriving deeper and receiving under pressure with a defender on his back and stepping inside whilst driving forward is a genuine weapon. At City that ended with Haaland being slipped through on goal. And at Tottenham that would be Marmoush being slipped into and we have seen how the Egyptian have that variety of finishing that he can leverage into a potent shot.
The reservation about Savinho, and why it may not apply at Spurs
The obvious concern is his goal output at Manchester City (which lets be honest was quite modest). But compare his shot maps and the picture shifts.
At City, most of his shots came from the right side. At Girona, where he scored far more regularly, the majority came from the left side of the box, because that is where he primarily played in La Liga.
Guardiola used him on the right for specific reasons, largely his ability to evade pressure and swing more secure crosses towards Haaland. At Tottenham he would be a left winger, arriving and shooting across his body, which is comfortably his most natural finishing action. Do not expect 15 goals, but a decent handful looks realistic, and that would represent a meaningful improvement on what City got out of him.
After a genuinely toothless showing against Brentford, the combination of Savinho’s creativity and Marmoush’s shooting is exactly what this Tottenham attack has been missing.