Tottenham’s £237 million summer opened with no first-half shot on target and a 3-0 at Brentford

Keane Lewis-Potter put Brentford ahead in the 12th minute, Vitaly Janelt made it two in the 33rd, and Michael Kayode turned in a third from a corner four minutes after the interval. Tottenham did not have a shot on target in the first half. The 3-0 defeat at the Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday, 22 August, opened Roberto De Zerbi’s first full season in charge, and it was the first time Brentford have won a Premier League home game against Tottenham.

A £237 million summer, and four debutants in the same team

Tottenham finished 17th last season on 41 points, and the response was to spend. Six players arrived: £237 million went on Jan Paul van Hecke, Mateus Fernandes and Sandro Tonali, while Andy Robertson, Marcos Senesi and Martin Dubravka came in on free transfers. Fernandes cost £85 million and broke the club’s transfer record in early July. Tonali cost up to £100 million and broke it again a few days later.

Four of the six made their competitive debuts at Brentford. Robertson, van Hecke and Senesi filled three of the four defensive positions, Tonali started in midfield, and Fernandes came on at half-time with the game already gone. That is a lot of money and very little time on the training ground, and Brentford spent 90 minutes finding the seams in it.

The numbers were worse than the scoreline

Opta put the expected goals at 3.96 to 0.47 in Brentford’s favour. Brentford took 26 shots, Tottenham nine, and only two Tottenham players managed one on target, neither of them before the break. Seven different Brentford players forced a save from the Tottenham goalkeeper. Kayode’s goal in the 49th minute put the home side three up earlier than in any Brentford home game in the Premier League except one, the 3-0 lead they held over Manchester United inside half an hour in August 2022.

Brentford could have had more. Igor Thiago hit the post from the penalty spot in the 55th minute after Rodrigo Bentancur, on as a substitute, fouled Kevin Schade from behind. An earlier Thiago finish came back off the crossbar and was ruled out for offside against Nathan Collins.

Sangare repaid a club record inside twelve minutes

Brentford’s summer was one signing where Tottenham’s was six. Mamadou Sangare arrived in July for a fee reported at around £41 million, a record for the club, and the assist for Lewis-Potter’s opener came off his boot on his competitive debut. Keith Andrews built the middle of his side around him, and a player who had never played a Premier League match before spent the evening controlling one.

Archie Gray captained the side at 20

Gray has had the Tottenham armband since pre-season, when Cristian Romero left for Atletico Madrid, and at Brentford he became the youngest player to captain the club in a league match at 20 years and 163 days. He was also the one who described the evening most accurately afterwards.

“We lost too many duels,” Gray said. “They just outfought us all over the park.”

De Zerbi did not argue with the diagnosis. “We suffered physically,” the Tottenham manager said. “We were not ready to fight the duels.” It is an odd sentence to have to say about a squad that cost this much, though not an unfamiliar one at Tottenham, where expensive rebuilds have a habit of taking longer to settle than the fixture list allows.

One game, but not a small one

Opening weekends get read too loudly and then forgotten by October, and Tottenham are not finished in the market. Savinho and Omar Marmoush have both been pursued from Manchester City, and De Zerbi has been open about wanting new starters across the front line.

What will be harder to file away is the manner of it. This was Tottenham’s joint-heaviest opening-day defeat in the Premier League, matching the 3-0 they lost to Manchester United in 2011-12. It also came against a side that finished ninth last season and missed a European place only on goal difference, which is worth remembering before anyone files Brentford under plucky. Andrews has a home win, a clean sheet, and a record signing who looks like he was worth it.

Catch up on the rest of the opening weekend