Why Tottenham are misfiring … and it’s not just down to the lack of goals

Tottenham have failed to score in their opening four league games for the first time. Two decades have passed since they last drew blanks in four consecutive Premier League matches. While these are outliers, it will take time for Spurs to improve.

The team has changed many players, both from last season to this one and from week to week, and this is a problem. Only four players who played at least half of the league minutes last season have played in 2026-27 as well. One of them is Richarlison, who has since been left out of the Premier League squad. Last season, his 15 goal contributions in the league were at least twice as many as any other Tottenham player. However, he will not be scoring or setting up goals any time soon.

Richarlison is also the fourth-longest-serving player at the club. Ben Davies, Brandon Austin and Rodrigo Bentancur have been there longer, and of those three, only Bentancur is likely to play regularly. Many of the current starters joined the club recently. The 11 players who started the goalless draw with Everton last Saturday had been at the club for an average of 1.3 years. Tottenham have also fielded the joint-third-youngest starting lineup this season. Many of their players do not have much experience, either as individuals or as a team.

Roberto De Zerbi has changed his starting lineup 12 times in the league since the first match. That is more changes than any other manager in the division. On average, he changes the team four times per game. This is more often than last season, when the average was 2.8 changes per game, under three different managers. It is no surprise that the new-look Tottenham are struggling to play well together.

Injuries have not helped, as De Zerbi mentioned when talking about 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.”

Business interests always affect which countries clubs visit each summer. Chelsea also went to Australia this year, and Aston Villa and Manchester City played friendly matches in Asia. But Tottenham was the only club that had also gone to that part of the world the previous summer. According to Premier Injuries, Tottenham lost the most days to injury in the Premier League in 2025-26, with 1,560 days lost. Newcastle (1,271), Arsenal (1,115) and Liverpool (967) were also among the top seven clubs for days lost to injury. These four clubs were the ones that traveled to Asia in summer 2025. High injury numbers might just be a coincidence, but it is fair to ask whether another long pre-season trip abroad was the right choice for Tottenham.

Several metrics illustrate their attacking problems. Spurs are capable of getting the ball into dangerous areas, before the next step trips them up.

Their total of 46 completed take-ons leads the Premier League. Only five of these successful dribbles ended with the player creating a chance or taking a shot though. Manchester United have completed 17 fewer take-ons than Tottenham yet have produced tangible output with almost twice as many (nine) chances or shots.

It is similar for 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 this season (34), but only Coventry (one) have ended fewer of them with a shot (two). Tottenham have produced a goal attempt from 5.9% of their high turnovers when the league average is 19.9%. Nothing is flowing smoothly.

Interactive The most costly statistic may be about how well they perform in the opponent's penalty area. Their total touches in the opponent's box – 119, just one fewer than Arsenal – looks good enough. They are often in good positions to score. But they take 3.97 touches per shot in the box. That is 0.47 more than any other team, and 1.15 above the average. Everything takes a moment too long, and that often ruins attacking moves.

But look at how their squad is made up. In terms of career goals scored in the Premier League, the 32-year-old left-back Andy Robertson was their top summer signing, with 12 goals. Solanke was the second-most-expensive transfer in Europe in the summer of 2024. Even so, he still has more goals in the Championship (44) than in the Premier League (41). He has not yet played the equivalent of 38 full league games for the club over more than two seasons. Mikey Moore has taken a quarter of the team's shots on target (three) in 2026-27. But he has played only 90 minutes before going on loan to Cologne.

Spurs once had two of the most accurate shooters in the game in Harry Kane and Son Heung-min. Now their squad is filled with players who struggle to hit the target. Most of their squad are at best a few percentage points above the league average for shot accuracy, and many of their players are below it. Chelsea and Bournemouth (24) have had twice as many shots on target as Tottenham this season, despite taking no more than nine extra shots in total.

Interactive “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 on Tuesday. His team had scored, though an error from Liverpool’s goalkeeper, Giorgi Mamardashvili, played a huge part in Conor Gallagher’s goal. Tottenham cannot rely on opponents making mistakes to bail out their cadre of wasteful attackers. But how long will it take for their mostly young band of new recruits to form an effective unit? Much work lies ahead.