Although Tottenham Hotspur are having more of the ball and getting off more shots this season under Roberto De Zerbi, they are not creating high quality, high percentage shooting situations for their forwards, and their forwards have been hopeless when it comes to threatening the goalkeeper and actually putting the ball in the back of the net.
Hence Spurs are winless in five games to start the 2026/27 Premier League season, somehow getting worse results than they did before their 380 million pound summer splurge as they sit dead last in the league table at the September international break.
It is a stark contrast compared to how people were feeling about Tottenham just a month or two ago. There were so many former players, fans, and big name pundits who were high enough on Spurs to predict such a huge immediate turn around that they were involved in top six discussions and a sure path back to European football.
Tottenham are no longer top six favorites
Among those pundits was former legendary Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United striker Alan Shearer. But just five games into the season, Shearer has seen enough that worries him to go back on his rosy prediction.
The all time great Premier League striker said, via Chris Cowlin, Van Hecke was a lot of money, Tonali was incredible money, Savio, and Marmoush (on loan) are others as well. It is a long, long three weeks for Tottenham and they simply have to start winning football games when they are back from the international break. All the bigger questions will start to be asked, if not already, if they don’t start winning football games very, very soon. I still think they'll have enough to stay up. They'll use the Aston Villa situation and what happened to them at the start of last season when I don't think they won in their first five games and they then managed to climb the league and qualify for Europe again. They will look at that and think there's still loads of football to be played, which there is, but there's a massive amount of work to be done at Spurs. I had them to finish in the top six this season and I am not sure that that will happen now."
Nothing Shearer is saying here is unfair at all. Tottenham Hotspur have been so badly disappointing and their new signings have yet to really elevate this team, even as players like Jan Paul van Hecke and Savio have been among the best in the Premier League in their roles.
There's just something disjointed about them, and while Tottenham are showing signs of growth, it is hard to back Spurs to be a top six team when they are in this state, even if, as Shearer says, this team still feels far too talented to even come close to relegation like they did last season.
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