Tottenham bottom of the Premier League as £175m splurge fails to stop the rot at 'too fragile' Spurs
Tottenham Hotspur headed into the first international break at the bottom of the Premier League table after Saturday's 3-2 defeat to Aston Villa completed a start so bleak that even a club hardened by two grim seasons is struggling to put a positive spin on it. Guardian analysis is blunt in its verdict: this is as bad as it has ever been.
The decline is all the more striking for what came before it. In March, with relegation a genuine fear, Tottenham spent big to bring in Roberto De Zerbi, and after obvious improvement they stayed up on the final day of the season. Since then the club have spent a net £175m ($234m) improving the squad — a message, it seemed, that the fiscal caution of the Daniel Levy era was over and that this was a club willing to spend. Yet here they are, propping up the table.
How the season unravelled
On the opening weekend at Brentford, with a weird mishmash of a side that was clearly undercooked, Spurs were hammered 3-0 by far better-prepared opponents — not a huge surprise given how early and how sensibly Brentford had done their transfer business. More worrying came a week later, when Spurs started well before fading in a 2-0 home defeat to Newcastle. Goalless draws against Nottingham Forest and Everton appeared to steady the ship.
Their biggest problem seemed to be a lack of confidence: tentative in possession, indecisive when chances arrived. The two goals they managed against Villa lifted them above Coventry to second-bottom of the goal-scoring charts, though they are ninth for shots — reason, on paper, for frustration rather than panic. The goals, eventually, should come.
Three goals, three failures
What emerged on Saturday was more concerning: a lack of confidence in front of goal that seems to have curdled into something worse — a more general mental degeneration. Again Spurs started well, with the Villa goalkeeper Zion Suzuki making a string of saves, and then just before half-time Villa scored a shambolic goal.
With Micky van de Ven off the pitch receiving treatment, Andy Robertson, in preventing the ball running out for a corner, gifted possession to John McGinn. A cut-back followed, a scuffed shot, and Johan Manzambi was left unmarked in the six-yard box to score. It was, by any measure, a horrible goal to concede.
The second was no better: a long punt not dealt with, Nicolas Jackson bringing the ball down, Van de Ven not getting tight enough, and a shot that bounced in off the hand of goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky. The third, whipped brilliantly into the top corner by Emi Buendía, at least carried genuine quality — but the playmaker had been given space to line it up after James Maddison, who had been marking João Gomes, failed to get out to him in time. Maddison might have been more aggressive, and the slight turn of his back as Buendía struck was never a good sign, but this was at least as much a failure of structure as of individual nerve.
To an extent, Spurs were unfortunate. Robertson might have cleared that ball for a throw-in, or at least got distance down the line; Boubacar Kamara's mishit cross could have gone anywhere; Jackson will not always be so deft in bringing down a chest-high ball; and Buendía, enormously technically gifted as he is, will not always pick out the top corner. But each goal followed some sort of error — and the Premier League is full of high-class players who will take advantage of any slip.
De Zerbi spoke of Spurs being "too fragile", by which he seemed to be talking both of their physicality and their mentality.
Doubts creep in over the summer business
Where the initial instinct was to be impressed by the sheer numbers and the change of transfer policy, doubts are now emerging about the nature of those summer signings. Is Sandro Tonali really worth £100m? Mateus Fernandes played for a relegated side. Jan Paul van Hecke would not be the first player to leave Brighton and find his level dip outside that precisely configured environment. Sávio and Omar Marmoush struggled to force their way into the Manchester City team — Sávio's finishing brought just two league goals in two seasons at City, and the evidence of Saturday suggests it has not improved.
There are mitigating factors. Spurs have players returning from injury and, like so many clubs, brought players in late, with preseasons curtailed and perhaps inadequate. But that is little comfort to a support base that had been told the spending signalled a new era of ambition.
Where now for Tottenham?
The sense had been that this season could not possibly be as bad as the last two. There is no Europe to distract them, the injury crises surely could not be as bad again, De Zerbi has proved his worth in the Premier League before, and the club has spent money. And yet this is as bad as it has ever been.
Once, a club of Tottenham's stature could have dismissed such a start as a blip that would inevitably sort itself out as the season went on. After the last two seasons, nobody can be quite that confident again. It remains implausible that Spurs could be relegated and unlikely even that they will be in another fight, but those preseason thoughts of European qualification are already beginning to look bafflingly optimistic — and that will inevitably slow the rebuilding of the club.