Tottenham spent more than £300m this summer but after four Premier League games, they have still not scored a single goal.
With two points, 18th, and beaten 3-0 at Brentford and 2-0 at home by Newcastle, they've followed that up with goalless draws against Nottingham Forest and Everton. The 5-1 win over Charlton in the EFL Cup, with five different scorers, was a momentary respite from their goalscoring issues but, in the Premier League, it simply has not happened.
Spurs strengthened almost everywhere — Sandro Tonali for £92.5m, Mateus Fernandes for £85m, Savio for £75m, Jan Paul van Hecke for £52m but none were out-and-out number nines. Goals win games, and the one position they did not solve is now a major talking point and concern before we've even got out of September.
One player to tie it all together
Elite strikers are the hardest thing in football to buy, and Spurs have not replaced Harry Kane in three years of trying. Granted, he's an all-time great striker in the history of the Premier League, but they haven't even been close. Dominic Solanke was a big outlay and produced a reasonable first season, but injuries have chipped away at him since and there is no evidence he can fire this club where it wants to go.
Behind him sit plenty of ineffectual wingers in terms of goalscoring and output: Mathys Tel, Mohammed Kudus and Savio are talented footballers, none are natural goal getters, and Richarlison has been exiled from the squad after no exit could be agreed.
Omar Marmoush was the summer arrival who looked most likely to take centre stage. He arrived on loan with a £60m obligation to buy on the back of 33 goal contributions in 26 games at Eintracht Frankfurt, where he played in a fluid front two with license to cause chaos.
Manchester City could not recreate that behind Erling Haaland, and neither can Spurs thus far, who have taken to using him on the left. Against Everton, he had one shot, lost the ball 11 times and earned a 4/10 rating from The Standard.
Who has actually scored for De Zerbi?
The pattern in Roberto De Zerbi's career is that he gets goals from forwards other clubs were unsure about. Evan Ferguson broke through under him at Brighton, Joao Pedro and Danny Welbeck had some of their best English seasons in his side, and at Marseille he got a scoring campaign out of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at 35.
What he has never had is a back-to-goal striker to build around, and Spurs have not given him one. The system needs someone to hold the ball, occupy centre-backs and buy the seconds the midfield needs to arrive. Especially with a variety of wide talents, and midfielders capable of making late runs into the box. Solanke can do some of that but Marmoush is never going to be that player.
The market Spurs are shopping in
The uncomfortable reality is where Tottenham sits in the pecking order. Julian Alvarez, for example, is out of reach, and so now are the Pedro's and Hugo Ekitiké's of this world, because the clubs above them moved first and offer a much more attractive proposition.
That leaves Spurs looking at names less attractive on paper and considerably more effective in practice. Brian Brobbey and Jean-Philippe Mateta stand out, and neither would need a bidding war.
Brobbey spent Saturday evening bullying Gabriel and Ezri Konsa — powerful, awkward, exactly the back-to-goal presence the system lacks, at a club with no European football to sell him. Mateta is plug-and-play: Premier League proven, physically imposing, and already on record telling Crystal Palace he wants to leave, with Juventus and Aston Villa circling earlier in the year.
The outside option is Strasbourg's Joaquin Panichelli, who scored 16 in 27 in Ligue 1 last season. Big, strong, and still cheap enough to be a bet rather than a gamble. None of it is glamorous, and that is the point. The striker market is as thin as it has been in years — the clubs above Spurs are struggling too — so the edge comes from moving early on the right profile, not late on the famous one.
Fans were originally overjoyed at the flow of money in the market after years of frustration under Daniel Levy, but the lack of a true number nine, and the failure to prioritise one, could yet prove the definitive mistake that could eventually lead to an explosive De Zerbi exit in the future.