Ten games, one goal and at least two different jobs. Omar Marmoush hasn’t been the forward Tottenham thought they were getting, but before anyone calls him a £60m mistake, Spurs need to decide what they actually signed him to be.
Omar Marmoush arrived from Manchester City at the end of August on a season-long loan with an obligation to buy. The reported terms are £50m guaranteed plus £10m in add-ons, so this is a permanent signing in all but name, and the bill lands next summer.
The international break is a good moment to take stock. Marmoush is away with Egypt for their AFCON qualifiers against Malawi, and when he gets back to Hotspur Way, Roberto De Zerbi has a decision to make about where he plays.
How has Omar Marmoush done at Tottenham so far?
Not well, and there’s no point pretending otherwise. He has one goal in ten appearances across all competitions, and it came in the 3-1 win over Coventry City. He has missed four big chances and he’s averaging fewer than one shot on target per game, at 0.7 per 90 minutes.
Elland Road summed it up. Just after 20 minutes he forced James Trafford into a save with a shot that deflected off Tarik Muharemović, but he also wasted one of the better openings of the first half with a tame effort when the pass to Mohammed Kudus was on. He was taken off after 65 minutes, and we gave him a five in our Tottenham player ratings vs Leeds.
De Zerbi set the bar high early on. After the 0-0 draw with Nottingham Forest in September, he said: “But Marmoush, we have to analyse if he has, or not, 15, 12 goals. I think, yes, because he has all the qualities, enough to score that number of goals. He has to improve, of course.” At one goal in ten, he is a long way off that pace.
Number 10 one week, number 9 the next
Here’s the part that gets lost in the shot numbers. Marmoush can play centrally or off the left, and Spurs have used that flexibility a lot. Before the Crystal Palace game, De Zerbi talked through his playmaker options and said: “We can play with Marmoush as a 10, with Conor Gallagher as a 10.” Against Palace he played behind Dominic Solanke, and afterwards De Zerbi praised both forwards for their work when Spurs lost the ball.
A week later at Leeds, he was the No.9. De Zerbi added Archie Gray as a third central midfielder and asked Marmoush to lead the line on his own against a big, physical back line, with Kudus and Mathys Tel either side of him. We covered why that team sheet didn’t work in our look at how Spurs shaped their side around Leeds.
Every one of those roles asks for something different. A No.10 has to find pockets and play the final pass. A lone No.9 has to hold the ball up, win his duels and live in the box. His numbers in the air, 0.4 aerial duels won per 90 at a 23% success rate, tell you which of those jobs suits him less.
Where was he at his best?
Look back at the spell that made City pay for him. At Eintracht Frankfurt in 2024-25 he formed a strike partnership with Hugo Ekitiké, and by mid-December 2024 he had 13 goals in 12 Bundesliga games. He scored seven in his first half-season at City too, before the minutes dried up behind Erling Haaland last season, when he managed three goals in 21 Premier League games.
The pattern is fairly clear. Marmoush has looked his most dangerous with another striker next to him, someone to take the centre-backs and leave him space to run into. He has looked far less comfortable as the only focal point.
Does he fit the way De Zerbi wants to play?
This is where Spurs have to be honest with themselves. De Zerbi’s sides control the ball through the middle, and he likes a midfield three or a dedicated playmaker. That leaves one central striker, and it doesn’t leave much room for a front two built around Marmoush.
So there’s a real risk of a profile mismatch: a forward who does his best work alongside a partner, in a system that rarely gives him one. That’s not entirely his fault. It’s a question for whoever signed off on a deal worth £60m without a clear answer to where he would play.
It also explains why the striker search matters so much. As we argued in our piece on Tottenham’s striker problem going into January, Spurs need a centre-forward who is still the answer next season. Get that right and Marmoush could finally play off someone, as he did in Frankfurt. Get it wrong and he’ll keep being asked to fill a gap he wasn’t built for.
Is Omar Marmoush a £60m mistake for Tottenham?
Not yet, in our view. One goal in ten is poor, and the missed chances are on him. But nobody can judge a forward fairly when he has been the No.10 in one game and the No.9 in the next, often with a different cast around him.
What we’d like to see after the break is simple: pick one role and stick with it until January. Our pick is the space behind or alongside the striker, because that’s where every good spell of his career has come from. Give him that run, judge him on it, and then shape the January business around the answer.
If he still isn’t scoring after a proper run in his best position, then Spurs will have a real problem with a player they are already committed to paying for. Until then, the bigger mistake would be giving up on him before working out how to use him.
