Forest 0-0 Tottenham: Spurs have still not scored a goal

Tottenham Hotspur took twelve shots and ten corners at the City Ground on Saturday and did not put a single one of those attempts on target. The match finished 0-0, and Spurs have now played three Premier League matches without scoring a goal.

It is their first point of the season. It is also, on the evidence of the ninety minutes, the least encouraging point available: a week earlier they had six shots on target at home to Newcastle and lost 2-0. Here they had none at all.

Twelve shots, ten corners, nothing on target

The corner count is the detail that lingers. Ten corners is a lot — more than any side managed in any match in the round — and it usually indicates sustained pressure in the final third. Spurs had 58.6% of the possession to go with it.

None of it produced a shot the goalkeeper had to save. Twelve attempts, all of them blocked, wide or over. Against Brentford on the opening weekend they lost 3-0; against Newcastle they created six clear openings and took none; here they created plenty and could not even direct one at the target.

Three matches, no goals, five conceded, one point, eighteenth. Aston Villa are the only other side in the division yet to score, and they are seventeenth on the same record.

Forest were not much better

Nottingham Forest committed twenty-two fouls, the highest total of any side in the round, and had twelve shots with two on target from 41.4% of the ball. This was not a home side seizing an opportunity against the club bottom of the table.

It is their second draw in three matches and takes them to two points, sixteenth. The 2-2 at Anfield remains comfortably the best thing they have done; at the City Ground they have now lost 1-0 to Leeds and drawn 0-0 with a side that has not scored all season.

That is the pattern flagged before this fixture and it held: Forest have been comfortable without the ball and uncomfortable with it. Away at Liverpool they had 30.4% of the possession and took a point. At home, where they are expected to take the initiative, they have one point from two matches and one goal.

What is actually wrong at Tottenham

The window closed on the first of September and Spurs did not solve the thing everybody could see. Three matches later the evidence is more specific than "they cannot score": against Newcastle the chances were there and the finishing was not, and here the final ball was not there either.

Those are two different problems and a side showing both in consecutive weeks is not simply unlucky. Ten corners producing nothing on target suggests a lack of presence in the box; six shots on target producing nothing the week before suggests a lack of composure in front of goal.

The mitigation is that it is three matches and the sample is tiny. The complication is that the next window is in January, and whatever fixes this has to already be at the club.

Twenty-two fouls, and a match that never opened

Forest committed twenty-two fouls, the highest figure recorded by any side in the round, and Tottenham committed thirteen. Between them that is thirty-five stoppages in ninety minutes, and it produced exactly the match those numbers describe.

Neither side managed more than two shots on target — Forest had two, Spurs had none. Twenty-four attempts between them and two of those forced a save. It is difficult to construct a duller ninety minutes from a division this open.

For Forest there is at least a defensive positive: a clean sheet, their first of the season, against a side that took ten corners. For Tottenham there is nothing to salvage beyond the point itself, and even that came in a match where they had almost sixty per cent of the ball at a ground where the home side had already lost once.

The bottom of the table after three rounds

Coventry City and Fulham are on nothing. Aston Villa and Tottenham are on one point each, both without a goal. Bournemouth and Forest are on two.

Six clubs on two points or fewer after three matches is a lot, and it reflects a division in which the top two have won everything and the middle has spent three weeks drawing with itself. Fifth to twelfth is separated by a single point.

For Spurs the useful frame is not the table but the calendar. Three matches without a goal is a statistic. Six would be a crisis, and the fixtures between now and then will decide which word gets used.

The Premier League simulator on this site plays the remaining thirty-five rounds from the real table with the real fixture list, if you want to see how often a start like this one turns into a relegation fight.