The stats on the ground covered by each member of the Tottenham squad per 90 minutes and their sprinting numbers tell a very interesting story.

After a difficult start to the season, we have seen evidence over the last few weeks that Tottenham are now becoming a Roberto De Zerbi team.

The players are not only learning about each other’s strengths and weaknesses, but now appear more comfortable in their roles in the system, which has resulted in Spurs having increased control of games through the 90 minutes.

The defeat to Leeds came as a big setback amid Tottenham’s progress, with the players failing to win their battles in the second period. However, overall, the players have strong running numbers this season.

Tottenham have two workhorses in midfield this season

A look at the Tottenham players’ running stats on FotMob shows that two of Spurs’ summer signings are covering a huge amount of ground.

Sandro Tonali has run 113.6 kms this season across Tottenham’s 10 Premier League matches, which is significantly more than any of his teammates.

However, when it comes to distance covered per 90 minutes, Mateus Fernandes leads the pack among players who have covered more than 50 km across the season, with the Portuguese star covering an unbelievable 12 kilometres per game.

The only player matching that is Dominic Solanke, who also runs the same distance per 90 minutes, although that stat is a bit skewed as the striker has not completed a full game on too many occasions this season.

Tonali is not far behind his fellow midfielder, with the Italian covering 11.6 kms per 90 minutes, which is the same distance that Archie Gray is also covering per match.

Spurs full-backs are sprinting incessantly

What stands out when assessing Tottenham players’ sprints per 90 minutes on FotMob, is the work rate De Zerbi expects of his full-backs.

The top three in the list are the three full-backs who have played the most this season: Gray, Destiny Udogie and Andy Robertson. The Leeds academy graduate delivers 17.5 sprints per 90 minutes, while Udogie delivers 15 and Robertson 13.9.

The reason that the three players sprint forward so much is that De Zerbi’s system relies on consistent underlaps from their full-backs, which is unique among current Premier League systems.

That was explained recently in a breakdown of Tottenham’s tactics by tactical analyst Harrison TO on The Overlap Breakdown, which you can watch below: