Tottenham's Struggles: Why De Zerbi's Spurs Can't Score

Tottenham are four games into the Premier League season and still waiting for their first goal. Coventry City are the only other side in the same boat.

That would be worrying enough on its own. It looks even stranger when you remember Spurs have spent around £320m, most of it on attacking talent, to give Roberto De Zerbi the tools he wanted.

So why does a team built to excite look so blunt?

De Zerbi’s Spurs: Same principles, new league

The Premier League De Zerbi has returned to is not the one he left with Brighton in 2024. The pace is different, the pressing trends have shifted, and teams have had time to study his ideas.

But his core principles are still stamped all over Tottenham.

His sides invite pressure. They slow the game down, roll the ball backwards, almost daring opponents to jump. Once the press comes, they flip the switch. The tempo spikes, passes zip forward, and runners attack the gaps left behind the pressing players.

De Zerbi himself summed it up in a 2020 coaching seminar: “The stronger the pressure of the opponent, the more vertical [our] action becomes. [The fewer opponents behind], the easier it becomes to go and score.”

We’ve already seen those pictures at Spurs this season: forwards isolated against fewer defenders, big green spaces to attack. The structure is doing its job.

Turning that structure into goals is the part that keeps breaking.

The 2-3-2-3 and the learning curve

Spurs’ shape in possession can look fluid, even messy, but it usually settles into a 2-3-2-3.

• Two centre-backs.
• In front of them, a holding midfielder – usually Rodrigo Bentancur – locking the middle. Those three form a fairly fixed spine.
• Ahead of that, the rest rotate. Wingers, full-backs, and central midfielders trade zones, swap lanes, and fill gaps. The overall shape stays, the faces inside it change.

The rules are clear: if a team-mate vacates a zone, someone else steps in. You don’t abandon the structure; you bend it.

On top of that positioning, De Zerbi layers his principles. Brave passes into the middle under pressure. Calmness in tight spaces. Vertical speed the moment the press is broken.

He used the same blueprint at Marseille between 2024 and 2026, where his side averaged 2.3 goals per game. The ideas work. The evidence is there.

Right now, though, Tottenham are stuck in the awkward phase where the patterns are there, but the finish is missing.

Comfort in chaos: who can handle the middle?

The whole system depends on players willing – and able – to receive the ball in crowded central areas.

Some love that environment. Others don’t.

Sandro Tonali, for example, is far more effective when he can face forward in bigger spaces. De Zerbi has recognised that and has already tweaked things: Tonali has been rotating with Archie Gray, who starts at right-back, to free Tonali to attack more open grass.

Gray, just 20 and out of his natural role when he steps inside, has coped admirably in those tight pockets and seems to grasp what his manager wants. It’s not perfect, but it’s functional.

The return of James Maddison, back from a shoulder injury in last Tuesday’s Carabao Cup tie at Liverpool, changes the picture again. Maddison is tailor-made for those interior spaces – receiving under pressure, turning, threading passes. His presence should help Spurs move from good build-up zones into real attacking territory more often.

Yet even with the right profiles, this style demands repetition. Players have to internalise the instructions, erase old habits and replace them with new ones.

Under Thomas Frank at the start of last season, Spurs largely built down the flanks, almost bypassing the middle third. The logic was simple: avoid risky turnovers in central areas.

De Zerbi is asking for the opposite. He wants bravery in congestion. He wants the ball played into the very areas they used to avoid.

That doesn’t change overnight.

From promising breaks to wasted chances

The irony is that Spurs are often doing the hard part well. Their build-up regularly pulls teams in, breaks the press, and launches attacks into space behind the opposition midfield.

What happens next is the problem.

There are three steps once the press is broken:

1. Spot the best passing option.
2. Make the right runs ahead of the ball.
3. Execute the pass.

Tottenham’s biggest bottleneck has come in the first and third stages. Too often, players either don’t see the through ball or choose not to play it.

Omar Marmoush’s movement has generally been sharp, especially in behind. The runs are there. The passes often aren’t.

Archie Gray has tried to slide balls down the line, but those brave, central through balls have been rarer. The result is promising situations that fizzle out rather than explode.

The return of Pedro Porro could be a turning point. For Spain this summer, on their way to winning the World Cup, he played a more central role in possession and again showed how dangerous he can be as a creator. His natural instincts – early passes, aggressive angles – fit De Zerbi’s model.

If Porro finds rhythm quickly, Spurs should start to carve out more of the clear chances that De Zerbi’s Marseille forwards thrived on.

Width, crossing, and the missing final touch

There are signs on the flanks too.

Against Liverpool in midweek, Destiny Udogie repeatedly surged into strong positions on the left. Andy Robertson has been solid for Spurs this season, but Udogie’s physicality and timing gave Tottenham a different kind of threat once the game opened up.

Those runs dragged Liverpool’s shape around and allowed Spurs to hit crossing positions against a retreating, disorganised defence.

When an attacking team suddenly accelerates, defenders instinctively drop deep to protect their box. That panic creates space in front of the back line – perfect for late-arriving midfielders or strikers smart enough to drop off.

Marmoush has tried to exploit that space several times, peeling away into the pocket just outside the area. Too often, he hasn’t been picked out.

That could change as relationships sharpen. It may also be a case of certain wide players wrestling with their weaker foot.

Savio, a left-footed right-winger, is excellent at driving to the byline, but pulling the ball back on that left foot from the right side is a tougher ask. On the opposite flank, left-footed Udogie and Robertson have produced clearer chances with their crosses.

At Marseille, both the right winger and right full-back were comfortable cutting the ball back on their right foot. Those deliveries were then attacked by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, whose movement in the box at 37 was still razor sharp.

Tottenham don’t yet have that same rhythm between crosser and finisher.

Close, but not close enough – yet

Look closely at Spurs’ attacking moves and a pattern emerges. The ideas are there. The structure is there. The spaces are being created.

They keep arriving at the edge of something dangerous. Almost.

This isn’t a guarantee that everything will suddenly click. Marseille’s forwards were ruthless finishers who loved running into open grass. Tottenham’s new-look frontline still has to prove it can match that level of efficiency.

But the margins are small. The details are fixable. If De Zerbi can tighten those details – the timing of runs, the bravery of the pass, the quality of the final ball – Tottenham should start creating enough chances that the goals, and the noise around this team, change very quickly.

The question now is simple: how long can a club that has invested this heavily wait for the scoreboard to catch up with the theory?