Lack of goals a big concern for Tottenham Hotspur season

Tottenham Hotspur has struggled to score this season in the Premier League and the lack of goals should be concerning to everyone.

If you look at the Premier League points table, Tottenham Hotspur has had a decent start to the season, currently in sixth on nine points, behind Brighton on goal difference. Despite giving up three goals this past Saturday to Palace, the defense has been solid overall for Tottenham and with only three goals against, it is tied for the sixth-best total in the league. However, with only three goals, Tottenham is in the bottom half of the league in the goals scored a table, which is quite concerning.

Tottenham is toward the bottom of the goals table

Tied with two other teams for the 14th most goals this season, three, Tottenham Hotspur is struggling to score. The Spurs are tied with Watford and Brentford with the three goals and Watford currently sits in 15th place overall and Brentford is 10th, despite conceding only 2 goals.

The four teams with fewer goals than Tottenham, Burnley, Wolves, Norwich, and Arsenal have a combined seven points and represent three of the bottom five teams currently in the league. The point is to get toward the top of the table, teams need to score and Tottenham is not doing that and more concerning, they are not even making chances.

The Spurs are struggling to create goal-scoring opportunities

Despite not winning as consistently as they would have liked last season, Tottenham Hotspur did not have problems scoring and finished tied for the third most goals with 68. However, this season the opportunities have not been there thus far and the players simply are not creating many.

In the loss to Crystal Palace, the Spurs only managed two shots and 4 shot-creating actions. Four.

Just for some perspective, according to FBref.com, there are 25 players who average four or more shot-creating actions per 90 minutes right now. Liverpool alone has four players that make more than five shot-creating actions per 90 minutes.

When people talk about a lack of creativity for Tottenham, it is these shot-creating actions that they are talking about.

Adama Traore, who most thought was not good enough for Tottenham, leads the league with more than 8 shot-creating actions per 90. Riyad Mahrez and Trent Alexander-Arnold are behind him with 7.26 and 7 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes.

The top Tottenham Hotspur does not appear on the current season list until Stephen Bergwijn at 41st in the league on 3.49 shot-creating actions per 90. Not one other Tottenham player is above 3, with Harry Kane 75th in the league at 2.71 per 90.

For a little perspective, last season Tottenham had five players that averaged at least 3 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes. Unfortunately for this team, two of those players Erik Lamela and Gareth Bale – who led the team at 4.4 per 90 – are no long Spurs.

Across the league, only Leicester City currently produces fewer shot-creating actions per 90 minutes than does Tottenham Hotspur. At 10.5, Leicester may be in real trouble this season and the Spurs are not much better at 14.25 per 90, tied with winless Norwich City.

There are currently more than 8 teams in the league that make more than 21 shot-creating actions per 90, and two Liverpool and Manchester City who are over 30. Liverpool is closer to 40 with 39.5 per 90 minutes.

After creating minimal chances in their first three matches to revert further into a shell against Palace was flat-out disappointing and concerning.  In fact, it is the ability to create shots that were part of our rationale for supporting Bryan Gil starting in place of the injured Heung-Min Son but clearly, Nuno Espirito Santo had other ideas.

Tottenham is getting buried in the goal difference

With 9 points out of 12, Tottenham is doing okay in the standings. However, goal difference is important as a tie-breaker and is usually a good indicator of a team’s success. Currently, Spurs are tied for 9th with Crystal Palace on a 0 goal difference. Clearly midtable, this is not too bad until you look the other way.

There are currently four teams with at least a +8 goal difference, led by Manchester City with +10. Every team in front of Tottenham in the real standings and a few behind them – see Everton and West Ham  – have better goal differentials than do the Spurs.

Last season Spurs missed out on Europa League just behind West Ham and finished just above Everton. The club cannot afford to dig a huge hole with goal difference as it may be really important.

The bottom line is Tottenham needs to start figuring out ways to move the ball forward and get it into scoring positions. If the Spurs cannot score consistently, this is going to be a long, long season to forget for Tottenham fans.