Tottenham and Omar Marmoush: the fix only works if De Zerbi abandons the wing

In Tottenham's match against Everton, Dominic Solanke touched the ball 19 times and did not register a single shot on target. Four Premier League rounds in, Tottenham have not scored a goal. I sat through that Everton game twice. What struck me was the vast emptiness between midfield and the front line, a zone the ball almost never reached at the feet of a No. 9. A starved centre-forward looks exactly like a finished one. Every crisis report falls into that trap before it asks the second question.

That is when the Daily Mail published its piece: Omar Marmoush is the ideal solution to Tottenham's crisis, but on one condition. Goal.com relayed it, and football forums across the Middle East kept passing it on. One name, one condition, one crisis. Enough material for a week of argument.

Roberto De Zerbi is installing positional play at Tottenham. In that system, the No. 9 does not wait inside the box. He drops deep, drags a centre-back out of position, then explodes back into the space he just created. Marmoush fits that profile precisely: a mobile forward, comfortable dropping, comfortable drifting wide, comfortable re-attacking space. On tactical logic alone, the argument holds, even without a single expected-goals figure to back it.

The condition turns out to be very specific: Marmoush must be used as a striker, not as a winger. Against Everton, he was pushed wide. When a player drops deep to drag markers, his value lives in the vertical corridor through the middle. Pushing him wide neutralises the exact asset the report celebrates.

This is where the data starts contradicting itself. The same report describes Marmoush as a former Manchester City man whose output was suppressed by Erling Haaland monopolising the position. It then starts Savinho on the right for Tottenham and names someone I can only assume is Mathys Tel. For anyone who has tracked transfers long enough, that kind of mismatched detail is the signature of an aggregated, multi-layer translation, not a leaked internal briefing.

Tottenham's problem sits in chance creation, not in finishing — and no centre-forward signing repairs chance creation by itself.

Separate the two. If a team creates ten chances a match and scores one, you buy a striker. If a team creates three chances a match, you do not buy a striker; you fix the structure. The report itself concedes Tottenham 'created very few chances' and that the crisis is not only about a missing final touch. That opens the door to a different reading: this is a systemic illness.

Marmoush solves part of the link-up problem. He drops, holds the ball, drags defenders, opens space for runners from the second line. That is real work with real value. It does not generate the ball. To get the ball to a No. 9, Tottenham need a midfield willing to pass through the lines, wingers willing to attack the half-spaces instead of hugging the touchline, and a structure thick enough to survive the counter after losing possession.

The report describes the squad as having 'so many wingers'. That is a resource and a trap at once. Four wingers in one XI do not create four threats; they create an attack squeezed into two corridors with a hollow centre. Put a mobile No. 9 into that, and you get one more player dropping deep looking for the ball. If the ball still does not arrive, you get one more ghost.

My time in Guangzhou taught me how to read reports like this. Guangzhou taught me: money cannot buy the match, but it can buy the man standing next to you. A club that spends around £320m in a summer — a figure several outlets carry and one I still need to verify — and then stares at a blank goals column four rounds later has a problem with the assembler, not with the part that was purchased.

There is a point the report never touches: whether the deal exists at all. It builds a City player as the answer for a different club but offers no signal that City are willing sellers. On the transfer desk, reputation is the easiest currency to launder. A name floated loudly enough can inflate a price, apply pressure inside a dressing room, or simply generate clicks. No agent is named, no bid is confirmed, no fee is quoted.

I also do not buy the 'clear decline' verdict on Solanke. The evidence offered is a touch count from a single match. One match. Meanwhile his scoreless run stretches back to March, per the same report — long enough to raise questions, and long enough to remind me that form crises are usually products of environment, not of age. Framing it this way uses a snapshot to describe a long-term trend. Those two things do not share a scale.

And I have to be blunt about reliability. The chain here runs from the Daily Mail to Goal.com to forums, with mismatched names along the way. That material is useful for shaping a narrative, useless for making a decision. Nothing guarantees Tottenham are negotiating. Plenty guarantees Tottenham are being talked about.

The most interesting line is elsewhere. De Zerbi said Mathys Tel thinks like a playmaker rather than a striker. Read it twice and you hear a recruitment admission: Tottenham have no natural No. 9, and this manager knows it. I was born to say what others think but dare not say: the thing Tottenham lack was bought long ago. They simply bought the wrong man.

My prediction, and it is testable: the Aston Villa fixture is the hinge. If Tottenham blank again, the comment cycle stops being about adaptation time. It turns to the managerial question, and a name floated in advance becomes the escape hatch for the story.

If De Zerbi genuinely wants Marmoush, he should do the maths carefully. Marmoush is not the answer. He is one correct piece — provided Tottenham go looking for the rest.