Have Tottenham Changed Too Much Too Quickly?

After a massive overhaul of the squad, Tottenham have made a dreadful start to 2026-27. Concern is growing that their new players are not going to gel quickly enough.

It always looked like there was a chance Tottenham might struggle to contend with quite so much change over the summer.

And now, with the knowledge that they have been unable to score a single goal in the Premier League and are already out of one of two cup competitions, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that the answer to the above question might well be ‘yes’.

For the first time in their history, in any division, Tottenham have started a season with four goalless games and, concerningly, there isn’t a great deal of evidence so far to fall back on that things will soon change for the better.

The performance in Tuesday night’s Carabao Cup defeat at Liverpool was without question their best of the season. Spurs created two huge first-half openings that Lucas Bergvall and Mohammed Kudus spurned, and arguably deserved to get something from the game, dominating possession and creating the better chances.

But ultimately, it was yet another defeat. And for the most part, there were disjointed elements to their attacking performance, with possession given up far too early time and again, and though they did actually score a goal, it came from a set-piece. And it was against a Liverpool team made up largely of youngsters and back-up players.

Meanwhile, at the other end, Spurs were far too easy to play through, and they gave the ball away near their own goal countless times, too. They didn’t make it difficult enough for Liverpool, and in a Premier League game against first-team players, they may well have been punished more often and more ruthlessly.

There were definitely elements to be positive about. Some of the moves they put together cut through Liverpool impressively, and they failed to turn good positions into chances a fair few times, on top of the 2.33 expected goals’ worth of shots that they actually had.

Remarkably, it was their highest xG vs English opposition since December 2024 (vs Southampton).

But the fact they couldn’t make more of the positions they got into and the territory they had adds further to the feeling from the rest of their start to this season that the players aren’t at all used to playing together.

It’s totally understandable, too. Tottenham spent well over £300 million on new players in the summer and also brought in a few players on free transfers. They were never going to click immediately, and manager Roberto De Zerbi has expressed as much in the media. “We are not a team yet,” the Italian said after the opening-day defeat to Brentford.

Tottenham have made more changes to their starting XI from match to match (12) this season than they ever have in the opening four matches of a Premier League campaign. It may always have been unrealistic to change this much this quickly and expect results.

Before the Liverpool game, they had been very poor in their first four Premier League games, creating chances worth just 2.22 xG in open play, which is the worst of every team in the division.

And with their expensive commitment to buying players who can play De Zerbi’s football (as well as the manager’s desire to clear out players who didn’t want to stay, such as Cristian Romero), they have lost a great deal of their set-piece threat, which was probably the only positive from 2025-26, when they broke the previous Premier League record for goals scored from corners (18, though rivals Arsenal scored 19).

In their league games this season, Spurs have barely threatened from set-pieces, generating chances worth 1.22 xG, the seventh-lowest in the league while – again – not scoring a goal.

This Spurs team is, of course, still young in terms of the time it has had together, and there were indications at Anfield that they could improve markedly before long. There is also a very strong case to be made that they absolutely had to dive headfirst into backing De Zerbi in the transfer market and change a lot in one summer after back-to-back miserable 17th-place finishes.

But history suggests that this much overhaul rarely brings immediate and drastic improvement.

Tottenham are the 12th team in Premier League history to give 20+ starts in their first four games of a season to players who didn’t play a game for them the season before.

Of the 11 previous teams, just five saw their league position improve from one season to the next.

Of the six whose position worsened, only one was relegated, but four more of them finished 17th, just above the drop zone.

And of the five teams who saw an improvement in their league position, only a couple saw long-term growth: Spurs in 2004-05 and Manchester City in 2008-09, and City’s improvement was largely thanks to sustained spending at the start of the Sheikh Mansour era.

Meanwhile, West Ham improved in 2018-19 with a host of new players, but flirted with relegation the season after and are now in the Championship. Sunderland have been all the way down to League One since their big-spending summer ahead of 2013-14. Chelsea dropped down to finish 10th just two seasons after a major overhaul in personnel ahead of 2023-24.

The feeling with Spurs is that things can’t get any worse than last season; that there is just too much quality in their squad for there to be any chance of another relegation battle.

That might be true, but even good players need time to gel. Especially when this many players are put together simultaneously.

There is also the intangible factor that there is a huge amount of pressure on these new players to make an immediate and significant difference, especially those who cost big money.

Sávio and Mateus Fernandes are both just 22 years old, but Tottenham need them to have a transformational impact. There’s every chance that they may struggle with that kind of pressure. Sandro Tonali (26) and Omar Marmoush (27) are more experienced, but it is still a lot to expect from either of them.

There may also be less patience from the fans, not only because of the amount spent on these players, but also because they haven’t had any time to grow to like them. There is little to connect them to the players, no shared history, and that will only increase the pressure on the players to perform sooner rather than later.

In all, it doesn’t look like a great recipe for immediate success, and the early evidence from Tottenham’s start to the season suggests it could be a struggle.

They did score at Anfield, but in the league, it has now been 407 minutes since they last scored a goal: João Palhinha’s scruffy finish against Everton at the end of last season that kept Spurs in the top flight.

There is a hell of a lot to improve, and they need to do it quickly. De Zerbi and his team face an almighty challenge.

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