The biting stat that shows just how bad Tottenham were in Chelsea defeat

Football certainly isn't shy of clichés, and one of the classics was befitting for Tottenham's display in Saturday's 1-0 defeat to London rivals Chelsea.

After such an inept attacking performance, you might've heard the mightily frustrated supporter next to you blurt out: "We could be playing until [insert hyperbolic period of time here] and still not scored!"

In case you didn't endure the game with your own two eyes or engage in the post-match discussions, Spurs were really, really bad against the Blues. A slender loss has never appeared so ugly.

Perhaps it stung a little more because this could've been a huge night for Frank. The Dane was hoping to become just the second Tottenham manager in Premier League history to beat Chelsea at the first attempt, and the Blues entered the weekend's duel in a rather vulnerable state.

However, my optimistic projections of Frank outmanoeuvring his opposite number and his team performing in a similar vein to how they did in the UEFA Super Cup proved wildly erroneous. What I hoped Spurs would do to the visitors, they instead did to us. Our primitive build-up was exposed by an astute pressing unit, and, ultimately, Chelsea's work without the ball allowed them to dominate Saturday's derby.

It was a performance that was diabolical on the eye, and perhaps even uglier on the spreadsheet.

Tottenham produced historically bad attacking performance in Chelsea defeat

90 minutes. Three shots. One on target. 0.1 expected goals. This was a historically bad attacking performance from Thomas Frank's Tottenham Hotspur.

We've seen some honkers in our impressive new home, but Saturday's showing may well top some of the apathetic displays in the latter days of José Mourinho and Antonio Conte's reigns, not to mention the ease at which teams bypassed us during Ange Postecoglou's second season.

0.1 xG, according to Opta, is the lowest haul by any Premier League team this season. It's also the second-lowest figure recorded by a Spurs team since that data's been available (2012/13). A Nuno Espírito Santo-led Lilywhites mustered a mere 0.06 xG in a 3-0 defeat at Crystal Palace in September 2021.

Japhet Tanganga was sent off at Selhurst Park that day, while Wilfried Zaha gave new right-back Emerson Royal the runaround. Yeah, that was bad.

“I have never been in charge of a team that has created that little in one game," Frank commented on his team's shoddy showing. However, such attacking frugality has been a theme of the Dane's short tenure so far. Saturday, while extreme, wasn't exactly an anomaly.

Since the opening weekend of the season, Spurs have failed to record more than 1.7 xG in a single match. They've been outperformed in this metric, which can be a useful indicator for long-term success, in eight of their 13 Premier League and Champions League games, matching their opponents in two.

Jamie Carragher's analysis on Monday Night Football further showcased what so many have complained about at the start of Frank's reign, with the Sky Sports pundit suggesting that a lack of courage from the players, most notably in the manager's preferred midfield pivot, allowed Chelsea to smother and wreak havoc out of possession.

The multitude of issues seemingly coalesced to facilitate an all-time bad attacking display, and at a rate of 0.1 xG per 90 minutes, it would've taken Spurs 15 hours to create enough chances to score a goal.

I could walk across London, from Enfield to Croydon, in that time and still have four-and-half hours spare. I'd probably rather do that, despite chronic calf tightness, than ever think about watching Saturday's 90 minutes back, let alone enduring 900 minutes of it!