Spurs Can't Score: De Zerbi's Silence Says Everything

Roberto De Zerbi did not shout at Dominic Solanke after the Everton draw. That was the detail worth watching. He was caught in what the cameras politely called a "heated back and forth" with another Tottenham Hotspur player — footage that slipped out and immediately told you more about the state of this club than any post-match press conference could. Managers who are winning don't get filmed like that outside stadiums. Managers who are losing arguments inside the building do.

Tottenham have now played the Premier League season's opening weeks without scoring a single goal. Not one. Jordan Pickford, of all people, marked his 100th Premier League clean sheet in north London — a milestone that belongs to him and also, quietly, to Spurs' attacking department, which gifted it. Jarrod Bowen would have done something with that space. Erling Haaland would have done something violent with it. Solanke looked like a man solving a crossword in a language he's still learning.

And then there is Richarlison. The Brazilian who scored eleven league goals last season, who is apparently very close to a return to Vasco da Gama, who calls it his dream. De Zerbi has left him out of the Premier League squad entirely. Whatever happened between manager and striker, it has gone past the point of selection rotation. This is a relationship that has already written its ending — the only question is the fee and the deadline.

Across the city, the derby at Old Trafford carries its own specific gravity this afternoon: Manchester United hosting Manchester City, two clubs at different stages of reconstruction, though reconstruction implies something is being built. Rene Meulensteen has offered his verdict in the Mirror — cautious, analytical, the kind of assessment that reminds you how complicated it is to instil a style when your squad is still discovering what it believes. City arrive as the more coherent proposition. United arrive with their perpetual question mark, the one that doesn't change regardless of the window just closed.

What the Tottenham situation reveals — and De Zerbi is smart enough to know this — is that football punishes dishonesty faster than it punishes failure. A team that can't score is a solvable problem. A dressing room that has fractured into factions is a different kind of mathematics entirely. You can buy a striker. You cannot buy back the moment before the argument was filmed.

The 2030 World Cup politics are already producing their own theatre — Morocco's prime minister publicly telling the federation chief to stop making promises about the final venue, while the Spanish federation insists the showpiece belongs elsewhere. Forty-eight teams, three continents for 2026, and the world is already fighting over four years beyond that. Football's genius is that it makes every future feel urgent enough to argue about right now.

De Zerbi, meanwhile, has a home game to fix. The silence at the final whistle of a 0-0 said something. His face after said the rest.