COMMENT: There is a tendency in football to construct narratives based on the smallest of sample sizes, a phenomenon that is particularly prevalent at the beginning of a new season when there are column inches to write and air time to fill – with very little football to go on.
This explains the sudden switch in the public perception of Tottenham Hotspur over the last fortnight: before defeat at Watford the club's lack of transfer activity over the summer was praised as an example of level-headedness amid inflated prices, as a dignified triumph of Spurs' constancy. Back-to-back defeats has flipped the narrative. Stability is now refracted as stagnation.
In this instance the sharpness of the turn doesn't necessarily reflect the media's fickleness but rather illuminates how difficult it has become to define the trajectory of the Mauricio Pochettino project. Spurs flutter clumsily in the dead space between top four challengers and potential title winners, their chairman's frugality simultaneously a blessing and a curse.
The result is a hesitancy that emanates from the boardroom and appears to clutter the atmosphere inside Wembley both on the pitch and in the stands. Double-think is a necessity for fans and players knowing that elevation to the next tier is out of reach... while also knowing they must believe in the illusion or everything will crumble. Pochettino, Harry Kane, Christian Eriksen; these men couldn't justify staying at Spurs and clinging onto their happy-place bubble – of organic growth, of young blooming talent – if they accepted top four was the upper limit.
To avoid the existential crisis that, particularly after success defeats, lurks in dingy corners of their temporary home Daniel Levy needs to spend big, not simply to narrow the talent gap to Manchester City but to send the sort of emphatic symbolic message that solidifies that most fragile of concepts in football: belief in the process.
Analysing precisely where Levy should invest may be falling into the trap of premature narrative-building, but there are systemic issues in central midfield that predate the 2018/19 season and, if fixed with a big-name signing, this could ease the psychological volatility that threatens to consume Tottenham. There is a pleasing symmetry in Tottenham's urgent need for a new midfielder to sew up the lines and their wider need to fix together the two competing sides of the Spurs mentality.
Both Mousa Dembele and Eric Dier were at their blundering, ungainly worst in their side's 2-1 defeat to Liverpool on Saturday, their stray passes and ambling movement a physical manifestation of that greater emotional turmoil at the club. Poor performances like these inevitably end in frustrating results for Spurs.
Pochettino's football is so tactically detailed as to suffer from over-organisation, his attacking patterns perhaps too rigidly structured to allow for individual errors. If the central midfielders cannot wrest control of the game the entire system suddenly looks directionless, such is the absence of renegade creativity under the Argentine. Spurs are like a matchstick tower in their precision; one fault and everything comes down.
Which is why Spurs need a newcomer to reinvigorate the first 11. Dembele's injuries appear to have caught up with him, the Belgian's movement and bite more stiltered than ever before. Dier has never been convincing, a passive shuttler of the ball at the best of times and clearly too immobile for a dynamic possession side like Tottenham. Harry Winks can certainly have a positive impact this season but the young England midfielder lacks assertiveness; he will continue a flow of possession but cannot instigate it.
Finding value for money in the transfer market is not impossible, although it does require an extensive scouting network and taking early gambles on players still being assessed by other clubs. Wilfried Ndidi, Idrissa Gueye, or Abdoulaye Doucoure would all have excelled as battling box-to-box midfielders at Spurs. All three will be available in January - at an inflated price. All three were poached for relatively meagre sums from central Europe.
Spurs' poor results against Watford and Liverpool hardly plunge the club into crisis mode, but an angst is developing in North London concerning the club's strategy to continue improving. Flatness in the centre of the park might seem like a minor concern so early in the campaign – and might even look like another example of a reactionary narrative– but stasis in this area accentuates a deeper issue.
Keeping hold of their prize assets, and thus keeping alive the positivity of the Pochettino adventure, depends upon Levy finally opening his cheque book and the club cannot afford to wait until they are settled in the new stadium to change tack. With Chelsea looking strong, a top four finish this season is by no means guaranteed. Falling short could force a number of their star players, plus Pochettino, to ponder a new challenge.
