Tottenham have made unwanted history at the start of the 2026/27 Premier League season. After four matches, Spurs are still waiting for their first league goal, making this the first time in the club's history that they have failed to score in each of their opening four league games. The 0-0 draw with Everton extended their Premier League scoring drought to 407 minutes, leaving Roberto De Zerbi's side with only two points from a possible 12.
Tottenham did finally find the net again in their League Cup defeat to Liverpool, with Conor Gallagher scoring in the 3-1 loss at Anfield, but that goal does not affect the Premier League record. Their league drought remains active ahead of the next match against Aston Villa, meaning another blank would take Spurs into even rarer territory.
How many Premier League games have Tottenham gone without scoring?
Tottenham have failed to score in all four of their opening Premier League matches of the 2026/27 season. Two of those games ended in goalless draws, against Nottingham Forest and Everton, while Spurs also suffered defeats without finding the net in their other two league fixtures.
The Everton game pushed the total drought to 407 minutes since Tottenham's last Premier League goal. That previous strike came from João Palhinha in the 1-0 victory over Everton on the final day of the 2025/26 season, a result that secured Tottenham's Premier League survival.
The figure is longer than four standard matches because Spurs also played the remainder of that final-day victory after Palhinha's first-half goal without scoring again. Unless they score early against Aston Villa, the run will move closer to the seven-hour mark.
Is this Tottenham's worst ever start without a goal?
Yes. Tottenham had never previously begun a league season with four consecutive matches without scoring. The previous club low came in 1974/75, when Spurs had to wait until their fourth league match to finally find the net. In the inaugural 1992/93 Premier League season, they also failed to score in their opening two games before ending the drought in their third.
The current run is therefore unprecedented across Tottenham's entire league history rather than simply being a Premier League-era record. It is also the first time Spurs have failed to score in four consecutive Premier League games at any point in a season since September 2006.
For a club traditionally associated with attacking football, the contrast is particularly striking. Tottenham spent heavily during the summer in an attempt to rebuild a squad that had finished 17th in consecutive seasons, yet the new-look attack has taken longer than expected to settle.
What is the Premier League record for the longest goalless start?
Tottenham are not yet close to the Premier League record. Crystal Palace went seven matches without scoring at the beginning of the 2017/18 season, the longest goalless start in Premier League history. Frank de Boer's team failed to score in their first four matches before Roy Hodgson took over, but the drought continued for another three games.
Only a small number of teams have previously gone goalless through their opening four Premier League fixtures. Sheffield Wednesday did it in 1994/95, Newcastle United in 2005/06, Swansea City in 2011/12 and Aston Villa in 2025/26, while Palace eventually extended their run to seven. Tottenham and Coventry have now joined that group in 2026/27.
There is at least some encouragement for Tottenham in the historical numbers. None of the previous teams that went without scoring in their opening four Premier League games were relegated. Palace recovered particularly dramatically in 2017/18, eventually finishing 11th despite losing their first seven matches without scoring.
Why are Tottenham struggling to score?
De Zerbi has pointed to several factors, including a disrupted pre-season, injuries and the time required for a heavily changed squad to adapt to his football. Tottenham added several attacking and creative players during the summer, but many arrived late or entered the season without a full preparation period.
Dominic Solanke has struggled to rediscover his sharpest form after an interrupted pre-season, while Dejan Kulusevski and other important players have dealt with fitness problems. New attacking options including Sávio, Omar Marmoush and Mohammed Kudus have also had to adjust to a different team and tactical structure. De Zerbi has publicly backed the group, arguing that the quality is there even if the final action has repeatedly been missing.
The numbers against Everton underlined the problem. Tottenham managed only two shots on target and produced an expected-goals figure of just 0.64 despite playing at home. The match also became the first 0-0 Premier League draw ever played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which had hosted 139 league matches before finally producing a scoreless result.
De Zerbi has described part of the problem as a “mental block”. Once a team goes several matches without scoring, the pressure around every chance grows, particularly at home, where frustration from the crowd becomes increasingly obvious.
Didn't Tottenham score against Liverpool?
They did, but not in the Premier League. Tottenham lost 3-1 to Liverpool in the League Cup, with Conor Gallagher scoring Spurs' only goal. Alexis Mac Allister, Cody Gakpo and Dominik Szoboszlai scored for Liverpool as Tottenham were eliminated from the competition.
Gallagher's goal at least ended Tottenham's wider run without scoring across competitions and may provide some psychological relief, but statistics from different competitions are kept separately. As far as the Premier League is concerned, Spurs remain without a goal in 2026/27 and the 407-minute drought is still running.
That distinction is important because searches for Tottenham's “goalless run” can now produce apparently contradictory answers. Spurs have scored this season in cup football, but they have still not scored a single Premier League goal.
When can Tottenham end their Premier League goal drought?
Tottenham's next chance comes at home against Aston Villa on September 19. Villa have also endured a difficult opening to the season, making the fixture an opportunity for Spurs to finally register both their first league goal and potentially their first Premier League victory of the campaign.
A goal at any point in that game would stop the drought and fix the final total beyond the current 407 minutes. If Spurs fail to score again, they would move to five consecutive goalless matches from the start of a Premier League season, leaving only Crystal Palace's seven-game run in 2017/18 ahead of them among the competition's worst starts.
The timing also makes this article worth updating as soon as Tottenham finally score. Once the drought ends, the final number of minutes, the goalscorer and the opponent can be added without changing the URL, turning a live search topic into a historical record page that can continue ranking for queries about Tottenham's worst scoring runs.
Can Tottenham recover from such a poor start?
Four games are far too few to determine how an entire season will unfold, and history suggests a goalless start does not automatically lead to relegation. Tottenham's wider concern is that their current problems follow two consecutive 17th-place finishes, meaning supporters are less inclined to treat another difficult beginning as a temporary anomaly.
De Zerbi remains confident that the attacking players will eventually click, and Tottenham's goal against Liverpool at least showed that the team can break through against strong opposition. The challenge now is transferring that improvement back into the Premier League, where every additional scoreless minute extends an unwanted club record.
For the moment, the key numbers are simple: four Premier League matches, no goals and 407 minutes since Tottenham last scored in the competition. The next milestone Tottenham want is not another record, but the first league goal of their 2026/27 season.
Published by Patrick Jane
18.09.2026