As Bayern Munich midfielder Joao Palhinha returns to English football, David Segar of Opta Analyst looks at the motivating factors in the move.
Thomas Frank won what was technically his first north-London derby as Tottenham Hotspur head coach earlier this week, beating Arsenal 1-0 in Hong Kong. It was notable because Spurs played against a man who was Frank's captain until just a few weeks ago.
Christian Norgaard played 68 minutes for his new club Arsenal, having been such an integral part of Frank’s Brentford team in recent years. Only Bryan Mbeumo (11,218) played more minutes for Frank in the Premier League than Norgaard (10,171).
Nobody won possession as many times for Brentford as Norgaard last season in the league (193), while only centre-back Nathan Collins (63.0 per cent) won a higher percentage of aerial duels (minimum 14 aerial duels contested) than his 61.9 per cent.
In Rodrigo Bentancur, Pape Sarr, Yves Bissouma, Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray, Frank has inherited a talented midfield at Spurs. But none of them necessarily look suited to playing the way Norgaard did for the Dane’s Brentford side. This may well be where Joao Palhinha comes in.
Palhinha's Premier League story so far
The Portuguese powerhouse is back in England. The man who would tackle a double-decker bus if he thought there was a football on board has returned to the Premier League, joining Spurs on a season-long loan from Bayern Munich.
Watch Palhinha's best tackles and goals
Palhinha made a name for himself in England with his dominant performances in Fulham’s midfield across two seasons between 2022 and 2024, putting up the sort of tackle numbers that made people wonder if he was programmed to do anything else.
In his first Premier League season (2022/23), Palhinha made 148 tackles, an astonishing 48 more than any other player in the division. He also competed in the second-most duels (487), winning 59.1 per cent of them. He won 64.3 per cent of his 112 aerial duels, with only 11 players winning a greater proportion, and 10 of them were centre-backs. Rodri (68.6 per cent of 105) was the only midfielder to boast a better record.
Palhinha recorded even more tackles the following season (152) despite playing two games fewer (33) than he did in 2022/23. Once again, he made comfortably the most tackles in the Premier League, 14 more than second-placed Joao Gomes of Wolverhampton Wanderers. It was the most tackles tallied by a single player in a Premier League season since N’Golo Kante’s 175 for Leicester City in 2015/16, their remarkable title-winning campaign.
He also competed in the eighth-most duels (425), winning 60.9 per cent of them, including 56.9 per cent of his 72 aerial duels.
With great tackling comes great responsibility, though, and Palhinha had to manage himself in quite a few Fulham games due to his propensity for accruing yellow cards. He received the most yellow cards in the Premier League in 2022/23 (14), equalling the record for most yellows in a PL season, and he nearly hit that mark again in 2023/24, with 13. Notably, he was not sent off once, so he was able to avoid a second yellow on all 27 occasions across both campaigns, which does suggest some restraint.
Most tackles in 2022/23 and 2023/24 combined
| Premier League | Tackles |
| Joao Palhinha | 300 |
|---|---|
| Moises Caicedo | 191 |
| Tyrick Mitchell | 176 |
| Casemiro | 171 |
| Idrissa Gueye | 170 |
| Alexis Mac Allister | 169 |
| Bruno Guimaraes | 167 |
| Declan Rice | 162 |
| Joao Gomes | 157 |
| Antonee Robinson | 155 |
Tough time in Germany
Palhinha's performances for Fulham earned him a move to Bayern last summer for reportedly around £47million after the same transfer collapsed in 2023. But by the time he eventually got his dream switch to Bavaria, the coach who initially wanted him – Thomas Tuchel – had been replaced by Vincent Kompany.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, things haven’t worked out for Palhinha in Germany. He made only six starts in the Bundesliga last season, and 17 league appearances overall.
That therefore meant he couldn’t rack up as many tackles as he had at Fulham, though with Kompany’s Bayern built to dominate the ball, it’s not as if he had all that many opportunities to do so. He still averaged 2.7 tackles per 90, only bettered by one of his team-mates in Sacha Boey.
How will Palhinha fit in at Spurs?
Arguably the main issue for him in Germany was one that Spurs fans have been discussing since links first emerged: is Palhinha good enough in possession?
He completed 92.9 per cent of his passes in the Bundesliga last season, with only four Bayern players boasting a higher percentage. That included a team-high 98.4 per cent accuracy in his own half, and a respectable 88.6 per cent in the opposition half. However, he completed just 82.2 per cent in the final third, which was lower than 11 of his team-mates.
By comparison, none of Spurs' midfielders recorded a passing accuracy in the Premier League last season of over 90 per cent, while only Sarr (84.1 per cent) and Bentancur (83.5 per cent) could better Palhinha’s accuracy in the final third.
His numbers weren’t as high at Fulham, but then they weren’t as focused on keeping the ball as Bayern. Palhinha had an 82.9 per cent pass-completion rate in the 2022/23 Premier League season with the Cottagers, which went up very slightly to 83.0 per cent the following campaign.
You always have to take those overall numbers with a pinch of salt given completing a two-yard backwards pass and completing a 70-yard pass that opens up the entire opposition are rather different, but it also might not even be that important. Frank’s Brentford finished in the top half last season but completed just 80.7 per cent of their passes, with only five teams completing fewer. So, the Spurs boss didn’t seem to be too concerned with completing lots of passes at his former club, caring more about making them count.
That leads us to the big question being asked about Palhinha: can he be incisive with his passing and help his team to open up their opponents?
For this, we’ll look at progressive passes – these are completed open-play passes in the attacking two-thirds of the pitch that move the ball at least 25 per cent closer to the goal.
Only 2.7 per cent of Palhinha’s passes in the Bundesliga last season were progressive (15 of 551); no nominal midfielder who attempted at least 200 passes in the competition in 2024/25 had a smaller proportion of their passes be classed as "progressive".
By comparison, Bentancur (4.0 per cent), Sarr (3.3), Bissouma (3.8) and Bergvall (3.5) all recorded proportionately more, though it should be noted they did so in an Ange Postecoglou midfield, which will likely be rather different to a Frank one.
Perhaps a better comparison would therefore be with Norgaard, who made 100 progressive passes from 1,418 in the league last season (7.1 per cent), which suggests Palhinha may need to become more adventurous in his passing under Frank, as would any other current Spurs midfielder expected to play in that role. That is assuming the Dane wants his new side to play similarly to his old one, which of course we still don’t know for certain.
Where Palhinha is like Norgaard is in progressive carries, or a lack thereof. The Portugal international averaged only 3.1 progressive carries – movements with the ball that progress play at least five metres upfield – per 90 in the Bundesliga, which was fewer than all other Bayern and Spurs midfielders, but slightly more than Norgaard (2.7).
It does seem like a no-lose deal for Spurs. They sign a player who has Premier League and UEFA Champions League experience and can help to break up the opposition’s play in a way few others can. That will likely come in handy against better opponents, having someone who can disrupt opposition attacks regularly and provide more protection to a backline that suffered often last season.