Only two teams are still without a goal after four matches of the new Premier League season.
Tottenham Hotspur and Coventry City are 360 minutes plus stoppage time without a goal.
As a newly promoted team, Coventry have their own issues to resolve. Spurs have invested heavily in improving on the last two seasons of dreadful Premier League results and a goalless start hasn’t exactly been sweetened by a couple of points from 0-0 draws.
Is this Spurs’ worst-ever start?
2026/27 is the first time in their history that Spurs have started the season with four goalless league matches, and the last time they scored as late as their fourth game was in 1974/75, when a goal against Manchester City followed blanks against the same opposition as well as Ipswich Town and Carlisle United.
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Remarkably, that season was the last time they didn’t score in their first match of the season until the inaugural Premier League campaign fully 18 years later.
Spurs were goalless in the first two games of that 1992/93 campaign. That was the last time, until now, they had to wait for game three to open their goalscoring account for a new season.
2026/27 is the 13th season of the Premier League era in which Spurs have been unable to get off the mark within 90 minutes of the first whistle, but the historical comparison is insignificant by comparison with matters of the here and now.
Spurs do have those two points. Of the five Premier League teams without a win, only Bournemouth have managed more draws. De Zerbi will fancy their chances of picking up their first win on Saturday, when they have a home fixture against Aston Villa.
After all, these are early days.
The Spurs boss can look forward to having more of his most incisive players available regularly. Even at this early stage, only three players have started all four matches: Jan Paul van Hecke and Sandro Tonali are the only outfielders.
Spurs and Coventry, among others, can take solace in the fact that time is a great healer in the modern Premier League.
Transfer deadline day arriving weeks into the season is particularly unhelpful for teams making more than cosmetic changes over the summer. For some, not quite being ready at the start of the season is becoming part of the market calculation.
Spurs don’t necessarily fall into that category but so much about this first month or so is transient that it’s increasingly possible to cut under-performing sides some slack. Whether a historically poor start in terms of goalscoring disqualifies Spurs from that leeway is a matter for the fans.