Spurs FPL team guide 2026/27

Latest updates

Tracked daily from cited sources. News for every club is on team news.

Manager & style

Summer transfers

In

Out

Current injuries

Injury picture as of 30 July 2026 — availability moves fast in pre-season, so confirm against official team news.

Expected XI & selection battles

Battles to watch

• GOALKEEPER (the most live battle in the squad): Antonin Kinsky started the survival-clinching final day of 2025/26, signed a new deal to 2032 on 30 June, and Tribal Football, Italpress and Football Insider all report De Zerbi has named him No.1 with Vicario priced at around £20m. But Vicario still holds the No.1 shirt and is fourth captain, while new signing Martin Dubravka started v Sydney FC and Brandon Austin started v Auckland. Genuinely unresolved.
• CENTRE-BACK: Jan Paul van Hecke (£52m) and Micky van de Ven are the likeliest pair, but Marcos Senesi (free) is on extended post-World Cup leave, captain Cristian Romero picked up a muscular injury in the World Cup final and is the subject of an Inter Milan pursuit, Kevin Danso is short of fitness, and Luka Vuskovic was sold to Brighton for £46m. No direct evidence yet for the first-choice pairing.
• LEFT-BACK: Andy Robertson (debut v Sydney, dangerous deliveries) v Destiny Udogie (fitness-managed) v Djed Spence (extended World Cup leave).
• RIGHT-BACK: Pedro Porro (extended World Cup leave after winning the tournament) v Archie Gray v Djed Spence. Spurs are reportedly preparing a £55m bid for a Porro rival.
• MIDFIELD: Tonali (£100m) and Fernandes (£85m) are presumed nailed on, squeezing Rodrigo Bentancur, Pape Matar Sarr, Lucas Bergvall, Archie Gray (2025/26 Player of the Season) and Conor Gallagher. De Zerbi has publicly opened the door to a Bergvall exit after a £46m bid was rejected ('who is not happy has to leave'), and Sarr has reportedly been offered to another London club.
• STRIKER (least settled position in the team): Dominic Solanke (post-injury, load-managed) v Richarlison (scored v Auckland) v Mathys Tel (best player v Sydney) v Dane Scarlett (scored v Auckland). Primary target Eli Junior Kroupi is long-term injured; Spurs are now linked with Ferran Torres.
• WIDE AREAS (decimated): Xavi Simons and Wilson Odobert are out for months, Kulusevski has no return timeline, and Kudus is only just returning to training. That leaves Manor Solomon, Mathys Tel, Yang Min-hyeok and academy players. Spurs are reportedly working to sign Savinho from Manchester City at a discounted fee.

Set-piece takers

FPL winners & losers

Research calls from the sources below, not model output — the model's numbers for these players are on predicted points.

Key uncertainties

The honest list — what this guide could not pin down as of 30 July 2026. Any of these can change the FPL picture before Gameweek 1:

• MANAGER NOT CHANGED THIS SUMMER: De Zerbi arrived in-season on 31 March 2026 as the THIRD head coach of 2025/26 (Thomas Frank, sacked 11 Feb -> Igor Tudor, interim 17 Feb to 29 Mar -> De Zerbi). changedThisSummer is therefore FALSE. But this is his first full pre-season and his first chance to install his system, and he explicitly said he simplified his tactics during the relegation run-in, so 2025/26 Spurs data is a poor predictor of 2026/27 style. Confirmed still in post: he led the pre-season tour and gave press conferences on 26 and 29 July 2026.
• APPOINTMENT DATE MINOR CONFLICT: Tottenham official, ESPN, premierleague.com and Wikipedia all give 31 March 2026. The Sky Sports piece is worded as 'Wednesday 1 April 2026'. Treat 31 March as appointment and 1 April as announcement/reporting.
• THE GW1 XI IS GENUINELY UNSETTLED AND THE XI ABOVE IS INFERENCE, NOT A SOURCED PREDICTION. No beat-reporter predicted XI for the Brentford opener had been published as of 30 July 2026 (Sports Mole, Spurs Web and Fantasy Football Scout all checked directly; The Athletic, football.london, Evening Standard and BBC were unfetchable from this environment). The only sourced predicted XI found is dated 4 July 2026 from a low-tier aggregator (tottenhamhotspurnews.com), predates the Tonali signing, and is now clearly wrong because it starts Kulusevski, who has no return date: Kinsky; Porro, van Hecke, Senesi, Robertson; Fernandes, Gallagher; Kudus, Maddison, Kulusevski; Solanke.
• PRE-SEASON LINEUPS ARE NOT A GUIDE TO GW1. All three friendlies were played by heavily youth-weighted sides. v Auckland FC (4-2-3-1): Austin; Hall, Hardy, Takai, Kyerematen; Donley, Gray (c); Moore, Williams-Barnett, Solomon; Scarlett. v Sydney FC (4-3-3): Dubravka; Hall, Hardy, Davies, Kyerematen; Gray, Bergvall, Gallagher; Solomon, Richarlison, Tel. The MK Dons game was behind closed doors and no XI was published. Note the formation differed between the two published games (4-2-3-1 then 4-3-3), so even the shape is not settled.
• WORLD CUP DISTORTION IS THE BIGGEST SINGLE VARIABLE. The 2026 World Cup final was played on 19 July 2026 and Tottenham reportedly had 12 players at the tournament. On extended post-tournament leave and absent from the tour: Bentancur, Sarr, PORRO (Spain, winner, World Cup Team of the Season), SENESI, ROMERO (Argentina, runner-up) and Spence. Reports say Porro and Romero may not return to Hotspur Way until mid-August, roughly a week before the 22 August opener. Their GW1 starts are genuinely doubtful.
• DO NOT CONFLATE WORLD CUP FATIGUE WITH INJURY. De Zerbi on 29 July said Danso, van de Ven, Solanke and van Hecke 'were not yet ready to play without risk', citing World Cup fatigue and jet lag plus 'long injuries last season' for Udogie and Solanke, and added 'maybe some of them can play the next game Saturday with Chelsea'. Those four are load-managed, not confirmed injured, and are listed in the injuries array with that caveat rather than as hard absences.
• PENALTIES ARE COMPLETELY UNVERIFIED AND THIS IS A REAL HOLE, NOT A SEARCH FAILURE. Fantasy Football Scout's rolling 2025/26 trackers record NO penalty taker for Tottenham in any of three sampled windows (Oct 2025, Feb 2026, Apr 2026). The last confirmed taker on record is Son Heung-min in December 2023, and Son left in August 2025. One aggregator (onsidearena.com) was found but returned internally contradictory, clearly stale data still naming Son as free-kick taker, so it was discarded as unusable. The Sydney FC shootout order (Williams-Barnett, Tonali, Robertson, Donley, Scarlett) is NOT evidence of in-game penalty duty. Re-check before GW1.
• SET-PIECE ATTRIBUTION TO TEL IS EVIDENCE-BASED BUT NOT CONFIRMED. It rests on him taking 20 of 31 corners in Fantasy Football Scout's final 2025/26 window and scoring a direct free-kick v Sydney on 29 July 2026. Xavi Simons was the primary taker for most of 2025/26 and is out long-term, so the duty is genuinely vacant rather than merely unreported.
• XAVI SIMONS RETURN DATE CONFLICT: 'at least seven months' from 25 April 2026 implies roughly December 2026, but Transfermarkt lists 20 February 2027.
• KUDUS INJURY TYPE CONFLICT: most sources describe a quadriceps/thigh tendon injury from January 2026 aggravated in April; one source describes it as a hamstring. Timing and severity agree; the body part does not.
• GOALKEEPER UNRESOLVED: Kinsky is reported by Tribal Football, Italpress and Football Insider as De Zerbi's chosen No.1 with Vicario priced at around £20m, and Kinsky started the 2025/26 final day and signed a deal to 2032. But there is no club confirmation, Vicario retains the No.1 shirt and is fourth captain, and neither started the tour games (Austin and Dubravka did). This is report-level only and is the highest-leverage thing to re-check before GW1.
• PLAYERS ON THE CHECK LIST WHO DID NOT LEAVE THIS SUMMER: Son Heung-min left on 6 August 2025 - a YEAR earlier - to Los Angeles FC. Brennan Johnson left in the JANUARY 2026 window to Crystal Palace for £35m, a Palace club record. Joao Palhinha and Randal Kolo Muani were loanees whose deals expired 31 May 2026; Palhinha is confirmed back at Bayern Munich wearing No.16 after Spurs declined a roughly EUR30m option, while Kolo Muani's onward 2026/27 club could NOT be verified - he is absent from both the Spurs and PSG 2026/27 squad pages.
• STILL AT SPURS, CONFIRMED IN THE 2026/27 SQUAD (cross-checked against both Wikipedia's 2026/27 season page and ESPN's squad list): Solanke (19), Richarlison (9), Kulusevski (21), Maddison (10, vice-captain), Kudus (20), Xavi Simons (7), van de Ven (37), Romero (17, captain), Udogie (13), Porro (23), Vicario (1), Gray (14), Bergvall (15). Captaincy order is Romero, Maddison, Ben Davies, Vicario, van de Ven.
• THE WINDOW IS STILL OPEN AND MORE BUSINESS IS LIKELY BOTH WAYS. Incoming links: Savinho (Manchester City, reportedly at a discounted fee), Ferran Torres, and a reported £55m bid for a right-back to rival Porro. Their primary striker target Eli Junior Kroupi is long-term injured. Outgoing risk: Bergvall (£46m bid rejected; De Zerbi said 'who is not happy has to leave'), Sarr (reportedly offered to another London club), Vicario (around £20m) and Romero (Inter Milan). NO confirmed senior striker signing was found despite Solanke's fitness record.
• TRANSFER FEE MINOR CONFLICTS: Wikipedia lists Robertson and Senesi as 'fee not disclosed' rather than free, though Sky Sports and both clubs describe them as free transfers on expired contracts. Alejo Veliz is given as 1 July 2026 / £7.8m by the Spurs season page but 28 June 2026 / 'undisclosed' elsewhere, with the club announcement dated 26 June. Dragusin's Fiorentina loan is described as carrying an OBLIGATION to buy on one page and an OPTION on another. Yves Bissouma's destination after release is unverified.
• SOURCE ACCESS LIMITATION: this session's WebSearch budget was exhausted early, and transfermarkt.com, bbc.co.uk, theguardian.com, football.london, standard.co.uk and theathletic.com were all unfetchable. Verification leans on Wikipedia's 2025/26 and 2026/27 Tottenham season pages, Sky Sports, ESPN, premierleague.com, tottenhamhotspur.com official announcements, Spurs Web, Sports Mole and Fantasy Football Scout. No claim rests on pre-2026 model knowledge, but the absence of beat-reporter depth is precisely why the expected XI and the penalty taker are weak.
• CONTEXT FOR PRIORS: Spurs finished 17th with 41 points in 2025/26 (10W 11D 17L, 48 scored, 57 conceded), surviving on the final day with a 1-0 home win over Everton on 24 May 2026 through a Joao Palhinha goal from a corner. De Zerbi's own record over the seven-game run-in was 3W 2D 2L. Treat 2025/26 attacking and defensive rates as a weak prior given the manager change and roughly £230m+ of summer investment. Opening fixture: Brentford away, Saturday 22 August 2026, 17:30 BST at the Gtech Community Stadium.
• SENESI PRICE SIGNAL (independent of the predicted-lineup source): official FPL 2026/27 data prices Senesi at GBP 6.0m, higher than every other Tottenham defender. This corroborates an expected starting role at left centre-back, but it is a pricing inference, not a confirmed lineup, and he has not played in preseason.
• SET-PIECE CONFLICT: beat reporting (Fantasy Football Scout) finds no established Spurs penalty taker, while official FPL data lists Solanke > Kudus > Simons > Richarlison. Similarly FPL puts Porro first on direct free-kicks while preseason evidence points to Mathys Tel. Unresolved until a competitive fixture.

Sources

• FPL pre-season: Tel lively, why Solanke and Fernandes missed out (Fantasy Football Scout) — 2026-07-30
• Journalist reveals fresh Dominic Solanke injury concern — 2026-07-30
• Official FPL bootstrap-static API - registered squad, prices, penalties_order, direct_freekicks_order, corners_and_indirect_freekicks_order and injury flags (the data the FPL engine itself consumes) — 2026-07-30
• De Zerbi reveals why Tottenham are yet to use five senior stars on pre-season tour — 2026-07-29
• Spurs boss De Zerbi addresses Fernandes injury rumours after Sydney FC friendly — 2026-07-29
• Tottenham player ratings vs Sydney pre-season (starting XI) — 2026-07-29