Can Tottenham’s improved defence lead them to the title?

Tottenham have transformed their squad over the course of the summer, using the money from the transfer of Gareth Bale to fund moves for seven players. Of these new arrivals, only Vlad Chiriches could be classified as a defender and he is yet to feature for the club in the Premier League.

Hugo Lloris, Kyle Walker, Michael Dawson and Jan Vertonghen have appeared in every minute of league football for Spurs so far this term, with the same true of Paulinho in the middle of the park:

Stats correct as of 12.45pm on Saturday 28th September 2013.

This consistency of selection has resulted in four top-flight clean sheets, something it took until just before Christmas to achieve during the 2012/13 campaign, with only Olivier Giroud of Arsenal and John Terry of Chelsea managing to penetrate one of the best defences in the division.

Keeping the opposition at bay is all well and good, but just how many shutouts does it take for a team to be crowned champions come the end of the season?

History

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Spurs have never kept as many clean sheets as the eventual Premier League champions. The closest they came was as 11th-placed finishers in 1998/99, registering 12 shutouts to the 13 of title-winning Manchester United.

The Red Devils only managed 12 themselves one year later as they successfully defended their crown. This represented a low watermark amongst Premier League winners at the time and it remains so to this day.

Were 12 clean sheets enough to win the top-flight title this time around, then Andre Villas-Boas’ men would be a third of the way there already. This seems unlikely, however, so let us look at how many the champions have managed on average (I have excluded the first three seasons of Premier League football from my calculations due to the fact that the division contained 22 clubs):

This suggests that keeping around 17 clean sheets would be enough for a team to be crowned champions of England; the best Tottenham have managed was 14 in 2011/12:

The Future

Finishing in the top-four has to be the first priority for the White Hart Lane outfit, though why not dare to dream in a season of such uncertainty?

Continuing at their current rate would set a new Premier League record of 30 shutouts from 38 matches. Whilst maintaining this level of defensive production has to be seen as unrealistic, surely keeping 13 clean sheets from their remaining 32 games is not an unattainable target?

Although I have not yet heard the current Tottenham side described as boring, would it be such a bad thing given the success enjoyed under this guise by both George Graham’s Arsenal and Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea?