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Now five matches into the start of the 2026/27 Premier League season, Tottenham are at a crossroads they did not anticipate just a few weeks prior.
After narrowly avoiding what would have been an embarrassing and damaging relegation from the English top flight, Spurs spent heavily this summer, overhauling the squad by shelling out over €350 million ($402m / £300m) in expenditures and over €200 million ($230m / £172m) in net spend.
They also handed manager Roberto De Zerbi a five-year contract to come in at the end of last season, as he successfully kept the club up and now looked ahead to his first full season in charge.
Unfortunately, it has not garnered the upward trajectory that Tottenham had hoped, as they have collected just two total points through the first four matches of the season. They failed to score in all four of their opening games, and as a result were starting to threaten one of the most infamous records in recent Premier League history.
They managed to avoid getting any closer after scoring twice in a 3-2 loss against Aston Villa, but there is still a chance that Coventry City reach this particularly unwanted milestone.
MORE: Updated list of Premier League top goal scorers in 2026/27 season
Longest run without a Premier League goal to start the season
The team with the longest run to begin a Premier League season without scoring was Crystal Palace in 2017/18 who began the season on a run of seven games without a goal.
Infamously, new coach Frank de Boer made it just four games into the season before being fired, losing to Huddersfield Town, Liverpool, Swansea City, and Burnley. He was replaced by Roy Hodgson, and they failed to score in defeats to Southampton, Manchester City, and Manchester United before finally finding the back of the net in a 2-1 win over Chelsea.
Their first goal was a Cesar Azpilicueta own goal, but Wilfried Zaha eventually bagged his squad's first goal with a 45th-minute strike that eventually proved to be the winner.
Coventry City are now threatening this record, having gone four games without scoring.
When did Tottenham last score a Premier League goal?
Tottenham finally ended a run of 492 minutes in the Premier League without a goal when Conor Gallagher scored against Villa.
Their previous goal was scored in the finale of the 2025/26 season, a 1-0 victory against Everton at home.
How Tottenham attacking stats paint a miserable picture for Roberto De Zerbi
Roberto De Zerbi is known as a manager who can create chaos and use that to his team's advantage to generate attacking pressure. Most fans saw him as an attack-minded manager who can generate good attacking volume.
That has just flatly not been the case so far this season.
According to xGstat.com, prior to the start of matchday five, Tottenham ranked 11th in the Premier League for shots so far this season with 49, but even worse, they ranked dead last in the league in expected goals (xG) per shot. Their 0.08 xG/shot mark was by far the lowest total of any team, with Newcastle the next-lowest at 0.11, a significant gap for that value.
This means Spurs aren't generating many shots, and those shots are generally bad ones. They ranked last in the league in total expected goals from open play, and they ranked 11th in the league in expected goals from counter-attacks, which is supposedly De Zerbi's specialty.
In fact, they've been anything but fast paced. xGstat.com had Tottenham with the fourth-highest field tilt of any Premier League club, owning 68.1% of the final third passes in their matches, and they had the fifth-most. This means, if anything, the Spurs attack has been slow and methodical, but has produced hardly any end product.
Spurs have to be far more incisive with their attack if they wish to find the back of the net consistently moving forward — or even at all.
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