After multiple false dawns for Tottenham Hotspur, the club had a manager with proven Premier League experience, and had handed him a £300m+ war chest - easily the biggest in its entire history. Instead, Spurs find themselves bottom of the table after five games for the first time in 18 years, with their only goals a pair of consolation strikes on another dismal afternoon against Aston Villa at the weekend. Things aren't quite as bad as the table suggests and had Tottenham taken any of a number of presentable first-half chances against Villa, they would have gone into the three-week international break silencing some of the noise around the club.
But instead, two points from five games and such a dismal record in front of goal has kept the spotlight firmly on them. Though it is only five games, their struggles to find consistency have extended into a third consecutive season. Tottenham have now picked up just 18 points in 2026 and, since the start of 2024/25, still one fewer than a West Ham side who were relegated at the end of last season.
Roberto De Zerbi cannot avoid scrutiny forever, especially after a summer where he was given relative carte blanche in the transfer market and, a top-class left-winger aside, got most of what he asked for. Speaking before the Villa game, he hinted he would have liked to have done things differently during the summer window, but the club had to respect Financial Fair Play and some players who had been earmarked for sale remained at the club. That will not afford him much sympathy given the size of Spurs' spend.
One of the outgoings who they were happy to let go, Luka Vuskovic, is thriving at Brighton. Meanwhile, the player he replaced, Jan Paul van Hecke, toiled in that Villa defeat and was dribbled past three times. Regardless, Tottenham were always unlikely to be an overnight fix given money alone will not solve the sizeable task of changing course after finishing 17th in back-to-back seasons.
But fans still expected something more than this, especially from a head coach known for his man-management and getting the best out of limited resources, as he demonstrated across nearly two years on the south coast at Brighton. Even one win would lift them out of the quagmire - and they will target a similarly under-pressure Man Utd side when the Premier League returns on October 10, live on Sky Sports. However, there are a number of issues of concern even after that mammoth spend.
The naive manner Spurs fell behind to Villa with Micky Van de Ven off the pitch injured and Andy Robertson inadvertently teeing up the opportunity, led De Zerbi to complain that "leaders have to be leaders" in such crunch moments. "We can't lose games in this way," he added. But does his squad have enough of that kind of player?
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