By Daniel Cross | Football Writer, Sportspherearena
Four-point-four-seven. That’s Tottenham’s expected-goals total from their opening five Premier League matches of 2026-27, built from 71 shots and 19 on target across five games at close to 61% average possession. Their actual goals total from those matches is two. Not two per game — two in total, across five matches, from a squad that cost more than £300million to assemble over one summer. Whatever the argument is for what Roberto De Zerbi is building at Tottenham Hotspur, the numbers say it hasn’t started with the attack, which is the one part of this rebuild nobody expected to be the problem.
Spurs are bottom of the Premier League. Not nearly bottom — actually bottom, with two points from five games, the club’s worst start to a season in its history, worse even than the two-point tally after five games in 2008-09, which at least came with a healthier goal difference. It is a genuinely strange place for a team that broke its transfer record twice in the same week to find itself.
Tottenham have scored two Premier League goals from an expected-goals total of 4.47 in their opening five matches of 2026-27 — the widest gap between output and chance quality in the division.
The numbers don’t match the reputation of the spend
Sandro Tonali arrived from Newcastle for a reported £100million. Mateus Fernandes followed from West Ham for £85million, a deal announced within days of the Tonali agreement. Savio — formerly Savinho at Manchester City — joined for around £75million and scored on his debut, a rare bright spot. Omar Marmoush arrived on a season-long loan from City with a £60million obligation to buy attached. Jan Paul van Hecke, De Zerbi’s former Brighton centre-back, cost £52million. Andy Robertson and Marcos Senesi arrived for nothing, adding Premier League and European experience to the back line. None of that reads like a squad short of quality. It reads like a squad short of a plan for how the quality fits together.
The clearest illustration is at centre-forward, where De Zerbi still doesn’t have one in the traditional sense. Dominic Solanke is the closest thing to a recognised number nine and has struggled for fitness. Richarlison, top scorer in each of Tottenham’s last two 17th-place finishes, has been frozen out of De Zerbi’s plans entirely. Marmoush and Savio were both bought from a Manchester City squad in which neither started regularly, and both have shown signs of needing time to adjust to being first-choice rather than back-up. None of Tottenham’s recognised forwards had scored a Premier League goal by the fifth match of the season — their first two league goals, against Aston Villa, came instead from midfielder Conor Gallagher and defender Van Hecke.
A manager whose track record says the opposite should be true
This is what makes Tottenham’s start so difficult to explain from the outside. De Zerbi’s first full Premier League season, at Brighton in 2023, produced 72 goals and 62 points — both club records at the time — built on a non-penalty expected-goals rate of 1.97 per game, the best in the division across that period. Brighton under De Zerbi were defined by scoring more than the underlying numbers suggested they should, not less. Tottenham’s current numbers are close to the exact inverse: chances created at a rate that would sit comfortably in the top half of the league, and a conversion rate that would sit bottom of any competition in world football.
There is context worth holding onto. De Zerbi only joined Tottenham at the end of March, with the specific job of keeping the club up — which he did, winning three, drawing four and losing five of his first twelve league games in interim charge, enough to finish above West Ham on the final day. This is, in effect, his first pre-season and his first transfer window with the club, working with a squad that has had five games together. Xavi Simons and Wilson Odobert are both out long-term with ACL injuries, Dejan Kulusevski is still working back from a long-term knee issue, and James Maddison and Mohammed Kudus have both had fitness interruptions — a genuinely unusual concentration of absences in exactly the position group Tottenham spent the most money reinforcing.
Tottenham’s 2-2 draw at Brighton in De Zerbi’s first home league fixture of the season was one of only two Premier League matches this term in which they have scored more than once.
What the fixture list says next
None of that changes where Tottenham sit right now, or how sharply the calculus around a £300million summer shifts if the results don’t turn. Prediction markets, which had Tottenham as outside top-six contenders before a ball was kicked, have already cooled on the club significantly. The Premier League table rewards output, not process, and after five matches Tottenham’s process has generated the fewest goals in the division.
The mitigating case — that this is a squad still finding its shape, missing key creative players to injury, playing for a manager whose attacking numbers have historically trended the other way — is a real one. But mitigating cases have a shelf life, and Tottenham’s is shortening with every week their expected-goals data and their actual results keep pointing in opposite directions. The international break gives De Zerbi two weeks to find a finishing edge that has been entirely absent so far. Whether he can is the single biggest question in the Premier League right now — bigger, in results terms, than anything happening at the top of the table.
Tottenham have taken 71 shots in their opening five Premier League matches of 2026-27 and scored from only two of them.
FAQ
Where are Tottenham in the Premier League table in September 2026? Tottenham are bottom of the Premier League with two points from their opening five matches of the 2026-27 season, the club’s worst start in its history.
How much has Tottenham spent under Roberto De Zerbi this summer? Tottenham’s 2026 summer transfer spending passed £300million, led by club-record fees for Sandro Tonali (£100m) and Mateus Fernandes (£85m), plus Savio (£75m) and an obligation to buy Omar Marmoush for £60m.
How many goals have Tottenham scored this season? Tottenham had scored two Premier League goals in their opening five matches of 2026-27, from an expected-goals total of 4.47 — by some distance the biggest underperformance of any team in the division.
When did Roberto De Zerbi become Tottenham manager? De Zerbi was appointed at the end of March 2026, initially to help Tottenham avoid relegation, before being kept on as permanent head coach for the 2026-27 season.
