Tottenham have failed to score in their opening four league games for the first time, and two decades have passed since they last drew blanks in four consecutive Premier League matches. Roberto De Zerbi is still trying to forge a settled side, and while the current run is an outlier, the evidence suggests improvement will take time.
Player turnover is a significant part of the problem. Only four men who played at least half of Tottenham’s league minutes last season have featured in 2026-27. One of them is Richarlison, who has since been omitted from their Premier League squad. His 15 goal contributions in the league were at least twice as many as any other Tottenham player managed last season, and he will not be adding to them any time soon.
Richarlison is also the fourth-longest-serving player at the club. Ben Davies, Brandon Austin and Rodrigo Bentancur are ahead of him, and of those only Bentancur is likely to play regularly. Many of the current starters are relatively new recruits: the 11 players who began the goalless draw with Everton had spent an average of 1.3 years with the club, and Tottenham have averaged the joint-third-youngest starting XI in the division this season. That leaves a squad short on experience, both individually and as a unit.
Continuity has been further undermined by De Zerbi’s selections. He has made 12 changes to his starting lineups in the league since the first match, more than any other manager in the division. At four alterations per game, Tottenham’s team is changing more often than it did in 2025-26, when the average was 2.8 and the club went through three managers. A new-look side struggling to gel is little wonder.
Injuries have not helped, as De Zerbi has noted with reference to pre-season. “Micky van de Ven suffered an injury in Australia,” he said. “Domi Solanke the same. James Maddison the same. Mateus Fernandes suffered an injury in Australia. He lost 15 days and it’s not so quick.”
Commercial pressures inevitably influence which countries clubs visit each summer. Chelsea were also in Australia this year, and Aston Villa and Manchester City played friendlies in Asia. Tottenham, though, were the only club who also went to that side of the world the previous summer. Spurs led the Premier League for days lost to injury in 2025-26 according to Premier Injuries, with 1,560, ahead of Newcastle (1,271), Arsenal (1,115) and Liverpool (967) in the top seven. Those four clubs were the ones who went to Asia in summer 2025. High injury tallies may be coincidental, but it is fair to question whether another lengthy pre-season trek was right for Tottenham.
Several metrics illustrate the attacking problems. Tottenham are capable of getting the ball into dangerous areas, but the next step trips them up. Their 46 completed take-ons lead the Premier League, yet only five of those successful dribbles ended with the player creating a chance or taking a shot. Manchester United have completed 17 fewer take-ons but produced almost twice as many chances or shots from them, with nine.
It is a similar story with high turnovers, which occur when the ball is recovered within 40 metres of the opposition goal to begin a new possession sequence. Spurs have recorded the fourth-most in 2026-27, with 34, but only Coventry, on one, have ended fewer of them with a shot, managing two. Tottenham have produced a goal attempt from 5.9% of their high turnovers; the league average is 19.9%.
The costliest statistic may concern their work in the opposition penalty area. Their 119 touches in the opposition box is one fewer than Arsenal, so they are often well located to score. But they are taking 3.97 touches per shot in the box, 0.47 more than any other team and 1.15 above average. Everything takes a beat too long, which is fatal for many an attacking move.
The make-up of the squad compounds matters. In terms of Premier League career goals, the 32-year-old left-back Andy Robertson was their top summer signing with 12. Despite being the second most expensive transfer in Europe in summer 2024, Solanke still has more goals in the Championship (44) than in the Premier League (41) and has yet to play the equivalent of 38 full league games for the club across two-plus seasons. Mikey Moore has a quarter of Tottenham’s shots on target in 2026-27, three of them, yet played only 90 minutes before going on loan to Cologne.
From once having two of the most accurate shooters in the game in Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, Tottenham have filled their roster with men who struggle to hit the proverbial barn door. Most of their squad are at best a few percentage points above league average for shot accuracy, with many below it. Chelsea and Bournemouth, on 24 each, have had twice as many shots on target as Tottenham this season from no more than nine extra shots in total.
“We have to shoot more, we have to shoot better and we have to finish better the clear situations,” De Zerbi said after the Carabao Cup defeat at Anfield, a match in which his team scored through Conor Gallagher after a huge error from Liverpool’s goalkeeper, Giorgi Mamardashvili. Tottenham cannot rely on opponents making mistakes to bail out their cadre of wasteful attackers. How long it will take their mostly young band of new recruits to form an effective unit remains an open question. Much work lies ahead.