Ben Davies stands alone in Roberto De Zerbi’s revamped Tottenham
Walk through the Tottenham Hotspur dressing room today and only one face connects the current squad to that emotional night in Madrid. Ben Davies signed his first contract with the club more than 12 years ago, and he remains the last man standing from the 2019 Champions League final line-up.
Every other player from that unforgettable European run has since moved on. The scale of the Ben Davies Tottenham squad rebuild becomes clear once you start counting the names who have followed them out of the exit door under Roberto De Zerbi.
Davies has watched teammates come and go through multiple transfer windows, several managerial changes and a complete shift in playing identity. He is now, by some distance, the club’s longest-serving player.
How 29 first-team squad departures reshaped Tottenham in two years
The numbers behind this rebuild are stark. Tottenham have seen 29 players who were involved in and around the first team leave the club permanently over the past two years. That is not a gradual turnover. It is a wholesale reconstruction of the squad De Zerbi inherited.
Some of those exits came through free transfers and loan deals that became permanent. Others were high-value sales that reshaped the club’s finances as much as its dressing room. Taken together, they represent one of the most significant periods of change in the modern history of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Cristian Romero’s departure sits among the most eye-catching. The Argentine defender completed a move to Atletico Madrid, closing a chapter that once looked central to Spurs’ defensive future. Djed Spence followed a similar path out of the club, joining Inter Milan in a £30 million transfer.
Then there is Luka Vuskovic, whose £50 million sale to Brighton carried an unusual structure. Tottenham retained a 20 per cent sell-on profit clause along with matching rights, giving them a stake in his future value and a say if he is sold again.
For the full context behind these figures, Football.London’s report on Spurs’ squad clearout lays out just how far-reaching this turnover has been.
Breaking down the multi-million-pound summer exodus from N17
The summer alone produced a striking list of departures. Yves Bissouma left at the end of his contract and signed a one-year deal with Ajax, a modest arrangement compared with the fee Tottenham once hoped to command for him. Joao Palhinha’s spell in north London ended with a move to Benfica worth approximately £16 million, a fee that will feel light given the money spent to sign him.
Further down the squad, Will Lankshear’s exit tells its own story about the club’s approach to fringe talent. He joined Middlesbrough for £10 million, with an additional £10 million available in add-ons, a structure that rewards Tottenham if he develops into a genuine Championship or Premier League threat.
Each of these deals, from Spence’s big-money move to Lankshear’s incentive-laden package, points to a club being deliberate about value. Nobody is leaving for nothing unless their contract has simply run down. Everyone with resale potential carries some form of future upside for Tottenham.
That financial discipline has coincided with an unsettled start on the pitch. Their recent home setback against Aston Villa and the disappointing defeat at Brentford have both raised questions about how quickly a squad this heavily rebuilt can find cohesion.
What the total squad turnover means for Tottenham’s future identity
Twenty-nine departures in two years is not a squad tweak. It is a full identity change, and Ben Davies is the only living link to what came before. The Ben Davies Tottenham squad rebuild has effectively created a new club within the same stadium walls.
De Zerbi now has almost total control over player transfers, with the fees generated by Romero, Spence and Vuskovic in particular giving him real spending power. How he reinvests that money, and how quickly his new-look group settles, will define whether this clearout is remembered as bold reinvention or costly upheaval.
Selection calls already reflect the changed squad, including the midweek Cup selection against Liverpool, where De Zerbi leaned on several of his newer arrivals. Davies, meanwhile, keeps doing what he has always done: quietly holding the line while everything around him changes, the last thread to an era that has otherwise disappeared.
