LONDON -- Tottenham finally registered their first Premier League win of the season on Monday as they earned a 3-1 victory over Coventry City in north London that lifted them off the foot of the table.
A first-half curler from James Maddison, who made his first start since May 1, 2025, gave Spurs the lead for the first time in this league campaign.
However, Roberto De Zerbi's team were pegged back after the interval when Jack Rudoni equalised for the visitors with a shot that beat Antonín Kinsky at close range.
The home fans only had to wait nine minutes before seeing their team retake the lead, though, when Omar Marmoush scored his first Tottenham goal with a powerful effort from the edge of the area.
- Kulusevski makes Tottenham return 526 days after suffering knee injury
Coventry head coach Frank Lampard and his players felt their team should have been awarded a free kick for the contact Marmoush's arm made with Milan van Ewijk's face immediately before the Egyptian shot past Carl Rushworth.
With the home fans growing increasingly nervous as the minutes ticked by, De Zerbi saw fit to try to lift the mood with the introduction of Dejan Kulusevski off the bench, 526 days after he suffered a serious knee injury on May 11, 2025.
Three Spurs managers have been sacked while Kulusevski was sidelined (Ange Postecoglou, Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor).
A late third from Ben Davies did secure a rare home victory, but there was cause for concern for current Spurs boss De Zerbi.
Tosin Adarioyo, Andy Robertson and Marmoush all limped off in the second half as the injuries begin to pile up with a regularity that is eerily reminiscent of the crises that have befallen Spurs in the last two campaigns.
The trio became the fourth, fifth and sixth players to take up a place in the Spurs treatment room just this week after Sávio, Lucas Bergvall and Destiny Udogie suffered injuries of their own.
Maddison provides reminder of quality on return
The main topic of interest heading into Monday's game was the return of Dejan Kulusevski to the Spurs team for the first time after he suffered a complex knee injury on the final day of the 2024-25 season.
The sight of Kulusevski receiving a rousing reception on his return was touching, but easily overlooked amid the emotion was the fact the Swede had actually started a match for Tottenham more recently than his teammate Maddison.
The Spurs No. 10 picked up the first of two serious knee injuries 10 days before Kulusevski's that reduced the Englishman to a bit-part player in north London in the time that has passed since.
It was fitting then that Maddison marked his return to the starting XI with a fabulous first-half strike that seemed destined for the top corner as soon as it span off his right foot.
Spurs have been missing moments of quality like it for longer than their fans care to remember and, in truth, it's all been downhill for the team since he picked up that first knee issue.
Since making his Premier League debut in August 2018, James Maddison has scored 21 Premier League goals from outside the box -- more than any other player in that time. Maddison's return makes Spurs a far more potent attacking force moving forwards.
De Zerbi repeats team bonding trip trick
With nine days to work with between Spurs' draw at Old Trafford and tonight, De Zerbi opted to take his team away to Marbella in an attempt to create bonds between the many fresh faces in his expensively-assembled squad.
It's a tactic that has worked for him twice before in his last job at Marseille. First in November 2024 with his team struggling, De Zerbi took them away to the French town of Mallemort.
The four-day retreat did just the trick as Marseille won three of their next four Ligue 1 games. When results took a turn for the worse in April 2025, De Zerbi whisked his team away to Rome in his native Italy and again the ploy worked a treat as Marseille took 10 points from their last four games of the season to qualify for the Champions League.
Spurs haven't released many details of what they got up to in Spain as the club's media channels remained notably free of 'Marbs' content. Whatever they got up to on the continent, it seems to have worked as De Zerbi's team away day paid off again.
Asked whether he introduced Kulusevski off the bench to help the team get over the line in what had become a nervous atmosphere as his team held on, De Zerbi said: "I thought for Kulusevski just for the fans because they wanted him on the pitch.
"And in the last five, 10 minutes more extra time, we needed the support of the fans and they are fantastic with Kulusevski [and] with us. They suffered too much in the last two, three, four season. I don't know, but they deserve to celebrate many, many wins."
Lampard's rare defeat in N17
So often the man to ruin an afternoon for Spurs fans in the capital while representing a team in a different shade of blue, Lampard was unable to pile more misery on his favourite opponents here.
Old habits die hard for Lampard, though, who had a slip of the tongue when speaking to reporters after the game when assessing Coventry's display.
"When you think of eight of our starting players who were in the Championship team last year, they've had a tough start for different reasons, but they're playing now [to a level that] if you didn't know, just Tottenham and Chelsea ... Coventry ... here like this, you wouldn't know to say who's the team that have been in the Premier League for the last 50 years or who's the team that's been out there for 25 years," he said.
"And that for me is a big deal from what the players produced. I'm disappointed to lose. I'm not over praising for a... But if you know football, they'll know they had a really tough game tonight."
Lampard came into this one looking to mastermind a third consecutive Coventry victory in the top flight for the first time since February 1998 following their recent uptick in form.
But for three Spurs strikes from outside the area with a combined xG of 0.86, he probably would have done so.
Team lineups
Tottenham: Antonín Kinsky, Jan Paul van Hecke, Micky van de Ven, Tosin Adarabioyo (Mateus Fernandes, 71'), Andy Robertson (Ben Davies, 69'), Archie Gray, Sandro Tonali, Mohammed Kudus (Dejan Kulusevski, 87'), James Maddison (Conor Gallagher, 69') , Omar Marmoush (Mathys Tel, 87'), Dominic Solanke.
Unused subs: Marco Senesi, Martin Dúbravka, Callum Olusesi, Luca Williams-Barnett
Coventry: Carl Rushworth, Milan van Ewijk, Bobby Thomas, Ethan Pinnock, Jay Dasilva, Caleb Yirenkyi, Matt Grimes, Jack Rudoni, Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Brandon Thomas-Asante, Sidiki Cherif.
Unused subs: Ellis Simms, Stephen Mfuni, Daniel Bentley, Victor Torp
Key stats
- Since making his Premier League debut in August 2018, James Maddison has scored 21 PL goals from outside the box, more than any other player.
- Jack Rudoni is the first player to score in consecutive Premier League games for Coventry since John Hartson (4) in April 2001.
ESPN's Global Sports Research contributed to this report.