A goal drought of SIX HOURS, no wins this season and £320m spent… Tottenham’s attack is truly dismal and Roberto De Zerbi urgently needs results after 0-0 with Everton, writes RIATH AL-SAMARRAI
If there was anything to be said about the reign of Daniel Levy, it is that his failures were delivered on the cheap. This latest version of Tottenham has no such excuses and even fewer finishers of any competence.
After four league games, Roberto De Zerbi has amassed zero wins and, for the first time in the club’s history, zero goals. It would seem that his superiors in the recruitment department skipped the most important aisle on their recent trolley dash.
Because how is it possible to spend £320million in the pursuit of such a blunt object? Where is the protein in this meal? If scoring is the main aim of this silly game, then the early signs point to colossal failure, over and again, and there isn’t much further to fall after back-to-back finishes of 17th.
It is dismal, truly, and perhaps made worse by the one redeeming feature of this performance against Everton – they dominated the ball. They controlled large passages of the game. They have men who are comfortable in possession and those individuals did create openings.
Alas, they would struggle to hit a barn door from five yards. We can excuse Jan Paul van Hecke for the one he botched early on – he’s a centre half and proved again here that he is very good at his core job. But what about Matheus Fernandes? He embodied the sheer panic that seems to ripple through this side in the final third when he needed four touches to control a through ball when a one-on-one was there for the taking.
As with the Nottingham Forest draw, finishing was the glaring shortcoming of Tottenham’s evening. But we are also yet to see anything of great consequence from the £100m invested in Sandro Tonali. For the amount they spent, that is a shocking scenario, and amplified by the realisation that Spurs are yet to face a giant this season.
A dire Tottenham have now failed to score in all four Premier League games – despite spending £320million in the summer
Results are now urgent, with a repeat of back-to-back 17th-place finishes unthinkable
For De Zerbi, the need for results is now urgent. But that will be contingent, in part, on him establishing some clarity in his own mind around personnel.
Naturally, the extravagance of Tottenham’s spending was welcomed by supporters, but it is nonetheless clear De Zerbi is fluctuating between ideas on who is best for what role. In his latest spin of the wheel, that meant four changes to the side deployed against Forest.
Two were necessitated by injuries to his full-backs, Pedro Porro and Destiny Udogie, allowing starts for Andy Robertson and Archie Gray, while Fernandes and Dominic Solanke came in for Mathys Tel and Conor Gallagher. Solanke’s first start of the season saw Omar Marmoush shifted from the tip of the spear to the left.
No doubt David Moyes would relish such freedoms of choice. Certainly, he wouldn’t be in a position to exile Richarlison in the manner Spurs have done – it is beyond strange that Moyes’s superiors left him only Thierno Barry as a viable striker.
As such, the Scot’s tinkering was significantly more modest than that of De Zerbi, with Ainsley Maitland-Niles given a start after impressing against Manchester United. Contrary to some wishes, Jack Grealish began on the bench, but for a chunk of the first half Everton had no need for attacking mavericks.
Backs pressed to the wall, they were at Tottenham’s mercy and saved only by a chronic lack of decisiveness. Van Hecke missed the first of the chances, skying over the bar from a Robertson free-kick, but that was nothing compared to one botched by Fernandes. There is no doubting the threat that lurks in those fast feet, but too often he can kill a quick move with an extra touch.
De Zerbi’s gesticulations would suggest he agreed, but a scoreless first half had positives for Spurs. They were fast, aggressive, hard-pressing and often verged on dominant. Savio, for one, was a menace to Vitaly Mykolenko in their duel on the Tottenham right. Robertson, a free signing, was excellent on the left. He overlaps well for an old boy.
Of course, it counted for nothing in the first 45 minutes and that is the most salient point. Even a team pinned to its haunches, as Everton were, escaped without any wounds. Had Antonin Kinsky been fooled by the bounce of a James Gardner free-kick in stoppage time, Spurs might have even gone behind.
Brennan Johnson came the closest to scoring for Everton against his former employers
No changes came at the break, but the balance of power did shift. Everton showed ambition, finally, and with it some Tottenham flaws were exposed. Among them was Gray’s suitability to playing right-back, demonstrated when Tyrique George danced by him and floated a ball to the far post. Kinsky blocked Barry’s header.
Kinsky then saved again from Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall after a mindlessly bad attempt to pass through Everton’s frontline.
In between, De Zerbi made a triple change to restart his attack and Moyes responded by sending in Grealish. He scented blood and he ought to have tasted it, but Brennan Johnson launched over the bar. A Pickford save at the other end denied Lucas Bergvall.