Tottenham's Transfer Targets: The Bomba Signing
Roberto De Zerbi has managed just three Premier League games as Tottenham head coach, yet he has already delivered his first great tease. A “bomba” signing is close, he declared this week — and with that single word he sent Spurs fans into a frenzy of guesswork.
The Italian insists Tottenham are only “60 per cent” through their summer rebuild. That is quite a claim for a club that has already spent a record £237million and welcomed six new faces. It also tells you everything about how aggressively De Zerbi intends to reshape this team.
He wants more goals. More menace. More edge in the final third.
Eli Junior Kroupi had been earmarked as part of that plan, but the 20-year-old Bournemouth striker’s foot injury — surgery and up to four months out — has killed that move stone dead. Spurs have had to pivot, fast. The search for a forward has widened again, and several names now sit squarely in the frame.
Deniz Undav – the late bloomer with ruthless numbers
If De Zerbi wants reliability over romance, Deniz Undav ticks a lot of boxes.
The German striker never fully convinced at Brighton, despite flashes of quality, including that delicate lob at Arsenal in 2023. Once he returned home and joined Stuttgart, everything clicked. He ripped through the Bundesliga last season, scoring 19 league goals at a rate of 0.76 per 90 minutes.
Only a handful of strikers across Europe’s top five leagues could match that output. Undav ranked seventh for total goals, sixth for goals per 90. Those are elite numbers, not a purple patch.
He then carried that form onto the biggest stage. Used as Germany’s impact weapon at the World Cup, he produced three goals and two assists in just 69 group-stage minutes. That is the profile of a player who doesn’t need 10 chances to make a mark.
Technically sharp, happy to drop off the front and knit play while runners dart beyond him, Undav fits neatly into De Zerbi’s blueprint. The head coach wants his centre-forward to be more than a finisher; he wants a pivot, a connector, a problem for defenders who never quite know where to pick him up.
The issue is age. At 30, Undav is not one for the future. Yet De Zerbi has already shown he is not obsessed with resale value. He wants players who can deliver now.
Brian Brobbey – power, pressing and a Premier League audition
If Undav offers craft, Brian Brobbey brings chaos.
The Sunderland and Netherlands striker used last season to announce himself to England. A superb debut campaign in the Premier League turned him into the focal point of a Sunderland side that punched above its weight, and he carried that momentum into the World Cup.
Brobbey scored three times as the Dutch topped their group, bullying defenders with his blend of strength and sharp movement. The run ended on penalties against Morocco in the last 16, but by then his reputation had grown.
Spurs do not need a scouting report to understand the damage he can do. He scored in a 1-1 draw at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in January, ragdolling defenders and giving De Zerbi — watching his future squad from the opposition dugout — a painful preview.
In De Zerbi’s first match in charge of Spurs, a 1-0 defeat away to Sunderland, Brobbey did it again. He harassed centre-backs, won duels, chased lost causes and turned routine clearances into panic. That relentlessness is exactly what De Zerbi wants from the tip of his press.
Brobbey offers a different type of threat to Undav. Less subtle, more brutal. But in a league where physicality still matters, that profile has real value.
Omar Marmoush – a talent in need of rescuing
One name already on Tottenham’s radar is Omar Marmoush.
The Egyptian forward arrived at Manchester City from Eintracht Frankfurt in January 2025 and exploded out of the blocks. Then the goals dried up. His first full season at City yielded just three league strikes, and now he is thought to be surplus to requirements.
That will tempt clubs who believe they can unlock the player Frankfurt enjoyed: a versatile attacker who can drop into pockets, spin in behind and drag defenders into places they don’t want to go.
For De Zerbi, Marmoush offers flexibility. He can operate centrally or from wide areas, link play or stretch the game. The question is confidence. Can he rediscover his edge in front of goal after a difficult year in a squad stacked with attacking talent?
The evidence from Germany suggests he can. He has shown he can score regularly in a major league, and at 27 he sits right in the age bracket De Zerbi craves — old enough to deliver immediately, young enough to sustain a peak.
If Spurs do move, it will be as much a psychological project as a tactical one. But De Zerbi has never shied away from a challenge like that.
Savinho – raw pace, rough edges
Then there is Savinho, a long-term Spurs target and a player who looks more like a partner than the answer to the “bomba” riddle.
The Brazilian winger is built for De Zerbi’s touchline. Quick, direct, aggressive with the ball, he thrives on isolating full-backs and driving straight at them. He wants the ball early, wants to commit opponents, wants to force the issue.
What he does not yet have is end product. One league goal last season tells its own story. The positions are good, the runs are sharp, but the final touch, the final pass, the final shot still need work.
For De Zerbi, that is both a concern and an invitation. The raw tools are there: movement, acceleration, bravery. Coaching can refine the rest. Spurs would not be buying the finished article; they would be buying the potential to terrify defenders for years.
There is another layer to this. Were Tottenham to pull off a double move for Savinho and Marmoush, the message would be unmistakable. This is not a club content to hover around the European places. Expectations of a top-six finish would spike overnight.
Bradley Barcola – the fantasy “bomba”
De Zerbi tried to cool the hysteria around his “bomba” line in his pre-Chelsea press conference. For him, the term simply means a player of top-level ability.
Bradley Barcola fits that description perfectly.
The Paris Saint-Germain winger is desperate for more minutes in a squad suffocating under its own attacking depth. He has already won the Champions League twice, yet still finds himself on the margins in a team overloaded with star names.
A move to Spurs would be extraordinary. There is no suggestion Tottenham are currently in a position to pull it off, and it would take a financial and sporting leap of faith on both sides. But if it ever happened, the rest of the Premier League would have to sit up.
Barcola is not some luxury cast-off. He is collateral damage in a PSG attack with too many options, not too much quality. Liverpool have made him a key target this summer, and that interest alone underlines his standing.
For Spurs, landing a player of that calibre would be something else entirely — a statement signing that would redraw expectations of what this De Zerbi era can become.
The “bomba” is coming, De Zerbi insists. Whether it is a ruthless finisher like Undav, a battering ram like Brobbey, a reclamation project like Marmoush, the raw electricity of Savinho or the fantasy of Barcola, one thing is clear: Tottenham are not done yet.
