Hull are unbeaten. Spurs can't score

Hull's trip to Stamford Bridge produced exactly the kind of afternoon that gets a promoted side talked about for the right reasons. Chelsea and Hull shared four goals and, by most accounts of the game, plenty of chances either side of them, with Hull coming away having extended their unbeaten run rather than simply survived it. That's the third straight result of note for a club that arrived in the Premier League with modest expectations and keeps finding ways to avoid defeat.

The other end of the table's mood

Across London, Tottenham's afternoon told a completely different story. A 0-0 draw with Everton at home means Spurs have gone four matches without a win and, more alarmingly, four matches without scoring a single goal. For a club with top-six ambitions and a new manager in Roberto de Zerbi tasked with reshaping how they play, that's the kind of number that starts conversations nobody at the club wants to be having in September.

Everton, for their part, will take the point happily. A clean sheet away from home against a side that's supposed to be scoring goals for fun is a decent return on a difficult afternoon.

Two very different problems

Hull's issue, if you can even call it that, is finding ways to keep games entertaining while staying unbeaten, the sort of problem most newly promoted clubs would sign up for in a heartbeat. Tottenham's problem is structural and immediate: a team built to compete near the top of the Premier League that currently can't find the net.

De Zerbi took the Tottenham job with a reputation for expansive, possession-heavy football built at Brighton. Four games in without a league goal isn't proof that the ideas aren't working, but it is proof that whatever is meant to happen in the final third isn't happening yet. Spurs fans watching Hull rack up goals at Stamford Bridge on the same afternoon their own side drew a blank will have noticed the contrast without needing anyone to point it out.

Something has to give soon at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It's hard to imagine a top-six club going much longer without registering a single league goal before the questions stop being about tactics and start being about the manager himself.