Tottenham Hotspur’s miserable start to the season deepened on Saturday as they were held to a 0-0 draw by Everton at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium — a result that pushed talkSPORT pundit Jamie O’Hara to publicly rip into five members of Roberto De Zerbi’s squad.
A Historic Goal Drought
The stalemate means Tottenham have now gone through their opening four Premier League games of the season without scoring a single goal — the first time that has ever happened in the club’s history. Spurs sit 17th in the table with just two points from four matches, and they’re now the sixth Premier League side ever to open a season scoreless through four games, though history offers some comfort: every previous team to do so avoided relegation, with final finishes ranging from 4th to 11th.
Reports from the match suggest the home crowd’s patience is wearing thin, with Tottenham reportedly booed off after a blunt attacking display despite dominating possession (62%) for large stretches. Manager Roberto De Zerbi has since apologised to supporters, pointing to a combination of injuries, a disrupted pre-season, fitness issues, dented confidence, and poor decision-making in the final third as explanations for the slump.
O’Hara Unloads on Five Players
Speaking on talkSPORT shortly after full-time on September 12, the former Spurs midfielder made no attempt to hide his frustration, repeatedly asking what was going wrong at the club and expressing disbelief that a squad assembled for roughly £350 million couldn’t find a way to score. He was especially pointed about individual performances, criticising Savio for running into dead ends, describing Marmoush as looking leaden-footed, and calling Solanke well off the pace. He also felt Bergvall looked out of his depth when introduced, and singled out £100 million signing Tonali as anonymous throughout the game — summing up the display as simply shocking.
The criticism of Solanke in particular appears to be backed up by the underlying data: according to reporting on his numbers from the match, the striker covered less ground and did less sprinting than nearly everyone else on the pitch, added a couple of fouls, and made no tackles across his 63 minutes on the field in what was his first league start of the campaign.
Pickford Reaches a Milestone as Everton Dig In
While Tottenham’s finishing woes dominated the headlines, Everton’s afternoon had a notable bright spot: goalkeeper Jordan Pickford recorded the 100th clean sheet of his Premier League career, becoming only the 19th goalkeeper in the competition’s history to reach that mark. The result also kept the Toffees unbeaten through their first four league games, with manager David Moyes crediting his side’s “Everton DNA” and defensive resolve for the point.
Everton actually shaded the underlying numbers despite spending long periods on the back foot, finishing with a higher expected-goals tally than Spurs and creating the game’s two clear-cut chances to Tottenham’s one — even though the hosts had more shots on target and 14 attempts on goal overall.
What the Players and Managers Said
Everton defender Jarrad Branthwaite pointed to his side’s resilience after the game, noting how Tottenham piled on early pressure that forced Everton to dig in before the visitors grew into the contest and carried that same mentality through both halves — even threatening to snatch a win of their own late on. He framed the “backs to the wall” approach as something the whole squad, not just the back line, can build on if they keep producing clean sheets.
Moyes was more reserved in his own assessment, conceding that Tottenham had the better of the shots on target and that he wasn’t fully happy with how his team played. He referenced Everton’s history at the venue in his pre-match message to the squad and acknowledged that Spurs’ opening 20 minutes caused real problems, while admitting his own side gave the ball away too often and fell short of their usual standards on the day.
The Bigger Picture
For Tottenham, the result raises pressing questions heading into the next round of fixtures about whether De Zerbi can turn around a side that dominates the ball but can’t convert it into goals — and whether the club’s heavy summer spending will start paying off before patience runs out further among the fanbase. For Everton, the point extends an encouraging unbeaten start and continues to showcase Pickford’s remarkable longevity between the posts, even if Moyes himself wants to see a sharper performance from his team going forward.
