Tottenham Hotspur can continue spending millions of pounds, changing managers and rebuilding squads, but no transfer fee can purchase the one quality this club appears to need more than anything else: a winning mentality.
After investing more than £300 million in ten new players during the summer, Tottenham have begun the Premier League season with four matches, no victories and, most remarkably of all, not a single goal. Their goalless draw with Everton extended that barren sequence beyond 400 minutes and left Roberto De Zerbi’s side close to the bottom of the table with only two points.
This is the first time in Tottenham’s history that they have failed to score in their opening four league matches. It was also the first goalless Premier League draw ever staged at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which has now hosted 140 matches in the competition.
Those statistics should trouble Tottenham far more than any debate about formations or individual selections. This no longer looks like a straightforward shortage of attacking talent. Spurs have Dominic Solanke, Omar Marmoush, Sávio, Mohammed Kudus, Mathys Tel and Brennan Johnson’s replacement options within an enormously expensive squad. James Maddison is returning, while Dejan Kulusevski remains another player capable of transforming matches when available.
The personnel may change, but the underlying problem survives every rebuild. Tottenham’s fragility has become institutional. When confidence disappears, the players appear to feel the weight of everything that has gone before them. Passes become safer, movement becomes less decisive and opportunities are treated as sources of pressure rather than moments to be embraced.
Everton survived an excellent opening from the home side before exposing that vulnerability.
Tottenham flew at David Moyes’s team during the opening 20 minutes. They moved the ball quickly, pushed Everton backwards and produced four attempts inside the first ten minutes. Jan Paul van Hecke should have done better when he met Andy Robertson’s fifth-minute free-kick at close range, but lifted his effort over Jordan Pickford’s crossbar.
For that opening period, Everton struggled to escape. Their passes were hurried, Tottenham recovered the ball aggressively and the noise inside the stadium suggested that an early breakthrough might finally release some of the tension surrounding De Zerbi’s team.
But the goal did not arrive, and the entire mood of the match gradually changed.
Everton weathered the storm, reorganised themselves and began to understand that there was little to fear if they remained disciplined. The longer Tottenham went without scoring, the more hesitant the home side became. Their early intensity faded and the crowd’s anxiety seeped down from the stands.
By half-time, Everton were the team beginning to look more likely to find the decisive moment. James Garner forced Antonin Kinsky to palm away a long-range free-kick in stoppage time, registering the first shot on target of the entire contest. Remarkably, Tottenham did not manage one before the interval.
Everton improved after the break and produced the clearer opportunities. Thierno Barry directed a powerful back-post header towards goal, only for Kinsky to make an instinctive save. Tyrique George also struck a controlled half-volley which was blocked by Rodrigo Bentancur.
The two biggest Everton chances, however, fell to Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and former Tottenham winger Brennan Johnson.
Kinsky presented Dewsbury-Hall with an outstanding opportunity when his careless pass went directly to the Everton midfielder. Dewsbury-Hall suddenly found himself with the goalkeeper exposed, but he hesitated fractionally and Kinsky recovered brilliantly, racing from his line and making himself big enough to smother the shot.
Johnson’s opportunity was arguably even cleaner. He found space inside the Tottenham penalty area with no serious pressure around him, but leaned back and drove his effort over the crossbar. Against his former club, it was the sort of chance he would have expected to convert.
Everton will therefore leave north London satisfied with their resilience but also conscious that three points were available. They did not control the opening stages and Moyes was rightly dissatisfied with aspects of their performance in possession, yet they created the better chances and finished with an expected-goals figure of 1.17 compared with Tottenham’s 0.64.
Spurs produced 14 attempts, but only two were on target. Mateus Fernandes’s tame effort shortly after half-time was greeted by ironic cheers because it was their first shot on target of the afternoon. Lucas Bergvall almost stole the game in the 89th minute after Pickford’s poor clearance, but the England goalkeeper recovered superbly to push the midfielder’s curling attempt around the post.
That late save secured Pickford’s 100th Premier League clean sheet and preserved Everton’s unbeaten start to the season. It also underlined the difference between the two teams. Everton made mistakes but responded to them. Tottenham made mistakes and appeared haunted by them.
Moyes acknowledged that his side had been second best during Tottenham’s ferocious opening, but praised their ability to absorb pressure and find a way through a difficult away match.
“I wanted much more from the team,” said Moyes. “We’ve not had a great record here. Only a couple of months ago we missed out on Europe here. I generally felt that we had to come here and show a bit more.
“Tottenham were so good for 20 minutes. They put us under so much pressure and we found it difficult to escape from it. We created a couple of chances ourselves, but we didn’t play well enough when we had the ball.
“There’ll be some games where we might have to play that way just to get ourselves through. It wasn’t the plan, but we were forced into it by Tottenham. I thought we did a really good job of being resilient.”
Moyes also described that resilience as being part of Everton’s identity.
“The clean sheet was huge for the team and for everybody,” he added. “It’s a wee bit in Everton’s DNA: we have to find ways.”
That is precisely what Tottenham currently lack. Everton possess a collective understanding of how to suffer, survive and stay competitive when a match is not going their way. Moyes has established standards, defensive responsibility and emotional resilience. His players may not always perform beautifully, but they rarely look as though they have stopped believing in what they are doing.
Tottenham might benefit from exactly that type of manager and that type of cultural reset. Not necessarily another fashionable appointment or another coach carrying an elaborate tactical reputation, but someone with the authority and patience to change the mentality of the club from the foundations upwards.
Moyes would bring discipline, accountability and an insistence that every player accepts responsibility for the team. He has spent much of his career making squads stronger than the sum of their parts. Tottenham, by contrast, continually appear weaker than the considerable sum of theirs.
Spurs have employed Mauricio Pochettino, José Mourinho, Antonio Conte, Ange Postecoglou and now De Zerbi. They have tried pragmatists, serial winners, progressive coaches and tactical idealists. Mourinho and Conte arrived with trophy cabinets that few managers could match, yet neither could permanently repair the mentality of the club.
At some point, Tottenham must accept that the problem cannot always be the latest manager.
De Zerbi was honest enough to acknowledge that his players are now confronting a psychological barrier. He used the Italian word “sbloccarsi”, meaning to unblock oneself, when describing what his team must do.
“It is a mental block because four games, no wins, no goals scored,” he said. “It is tough for the players. The team is extremely strong. We can score goals and we can win games.
“We played very well in the first 30 minutes and then maybe the energy, maybe the fact we didn’t score, maybe we lost a little confidence in some players. We have to improve in the last third of the pitch. The last decision, the last pass, and we have to shoot more times.”
De Zerbi pointed towards injuries, the disruption caused by the World Cup, a difficult pre-season tour to Australia and New Zealand and the late arrival of several signings. Those are legitimate mitigating factors. Sávio and Marmoush have barely had time to settle, while Solanke and Maddison have had fitness problems.
Yet Tottenham’s difficulties feel far older than this summer. They predate De Zerbi, most of the current squad and many of the executives attempting to rebuild the club.
This is why another enormous transfer window will not necessarily provide the answer. Spurs can spend another £100 million in January and purchase another collection of gifted footballers, but if those players enter a culture dominated by anxiety, impatience and historical failure, the same pattern may simply begin again.
There is talent at Tottenham. There is an extraordinary stadium, a huge supporter base and financial power that most Premier League clubs could never hope to possess. What is missing is the belief that difficult moments can be overcome rather than merely endured.
Everton demonstrated that belief in north London. They absorbed Tottenham’s best spell, remained calm and gradually became the more dangerous side. They should arguably have won the match through Dewsbury-Hall or Johnson, but Moyes will still recognise the significance of another point and another clean sheet.
Tottenham were booed at the final whistle because their supporters have seen this story too many times. De Zerbi apologised to them and accepted their reaction, but the Italian cannot solve something so deeply embedded on his own.
Tottenham do not need another spending spree. They need standards, patience, stability and a far stronger collective identity. Most of all, they need to stop believing that every problem can be solved by purchasing another player or appointing another celebrated manager.
Money can buy talent. It can build a magnificent stadium and assemble a squad filled with international footballers. What it cannot automatically buy is character.
Everton showed theirs. Tottenham are still searching for theirs.
