Two Premier League games played. Zero points. Zero league goals. Back-to-back defeats, 3–0 at Brentford and 0–2 at home to Newcastle. And now Nottingham Forest away on Saturday — a ground where Spurs will carry some immediate context, though perhaps not in the way you might expect.
Here's the uncomfortable truth about Tottenham's start to 2026/27: the football has looked better than the results suggest, and that is not actually reassuring. Dominating possession and manufacturing pressure without converting it into goals or points is not a sign that things are nearly right. It is a specific, diagnosable problem — and it is the problem De Zerbi's side are taking to the City Ground.
Let's start with what the data and the eye test are both saying about these early performances. Against Newcastle particularly, Spurs were the better side for long stretches of the first half. Tons of possession, structured buildup, sustained pressure in the final third. De Zerbi's fingerprints are already visible: the goalkeeper playing out under pressure, the centre-backs stepping into midfield to initiate, the wingers tucking in to create overloads centrally. The shape is there. The intent is there. What is not there — not yet — is the clinical edge that turns all of that into something that shows up on the scoreboard.
The Sandro Tonali situation crystallises it. The £92.5 million club-record signing is supposed to be the engine room of this new midfield — press-resistant, technically assured, capable of driving through the lines that De Zerbi's system demands his eights and tens to exploit. But against Newcastle, it was Tonali who switched off for a moment in the first half, and Anthony Elanga punished it with the opener. One lapse became the catalyst for a defeat. You cannot spend that kind of money on a midfielder and absorb that kind of individual error in the second week of the season. It's not a reason to panic about Tonali — he's 26, genuinely elite when switched on, and this is his first month at a new club — but it signals that the concentration and game-management piece of De Zerbi's system hasn't bedded in yet.
Dominating possession without converting it is not a sign that things are nearly right. It is a specific, diagnosable problem.
The deeper structural issue is what happens when Spurs reach the final third. De Zerbi's system is genuinely possession-heavy and press-oriented in buildup, but it demands that the players arriving in the box do so with timing and purpose — the goal isn't endless recycling, it's controlled progression that creates numerical advantages in dangerous zones. At Brighton and Marseille, that final-third execution came from players who had spent considerable time learning the triggers: when to make the run, when to lay it back, when to shoot on first touch. Spurs' current attacking options are still learning those triggers. Mateus Fernandes, 21 years old and brought in for £85 million from relegated West Ham, has shown flashes — but the combinations in tight spaces that De Zerbi's system lives and dies by haven't had time to develop yet. Dejan Kulusevski, still finding his feet after injury, is only recently back in full training and will need time to rediscover that chemistry as well.
And then there's the striker question, which looms over all of this. Spurs do not have a top-tier centre-forward right now. The links to Rafael Leão and Cody Gakpo speak to a club that knows its attacking spine isn't complete. A De Zerbi system without a press-resistant, technically sharp number nine to hold the shape and create the third-man runs is operating at maybe 70 percent of its theoretical ceiling. The League Cup rout of Charlton (5–1) offered some optimism, but Charlton are not the diagnostic tool you need.
Which brings us to Saturday. Forest arrive at this fixture having lost their opening league game — 1–0 at home to Leeds on August 22, with Anton Stach's 88th-minute free-kick doing the damage — and drawn 2–2 away at Liverpool a week later. So Oliver Glasner's team are unbeaten in only the most literal sense, and they've already shown they can be beaten at the City Ground itself. That matters for Spurs' mindset. But it doesn't solve the tactical problem: Forest will happily hand Tottenham possession and ask them to break down a disciplined shape. For a side already struggling to convert control into clear-cut chances against teams who press them, facing a side content to sit deep and counter is a genuinely uncomfortable proposition. Spurs will have the ball. The question is whether they can do anything useful with it.
The tactical answer De Zerbi needs is not a complete overhaul — it's a set of small adjustments in the final third and a sharper concentration from his most expensive players when the other team has the ball. One of those adjustments will likely involve using either Fernandes or Kulusevski in a more withdrawn role against a low block, creating a diamond that can probe the centre rather than relying on width. Another is simply repetition: the timing of the runs, the weight of the pass, the decision to shoot versus recycle. These feel like process problems, not talent problems. But process takes weeks to lock in, and Spurs don't have weeks. They have Forest, then Liverpool, then City on the near horizon. The window to show that De Zerbi's system is salvageable — not just theoretically, but in actual points — is closing faster than the possession stats suggest.
That said, there is real reason to believe this gets better. The structure is sound, the personnel is capable, and the coach has done this before. But beautiful buildup play that doesn't yield goals is just a slower way of losing. De Zerbi knows it. Spurs know it. Forest will be counting on it.