Testing on the New Model Poch has gone well so far, by and large, but yesterday against West Brom the wheels well and truly fell off. Progress is never straightforward. The best thing a supporter can hope for is that for every one step back there are two forward. When the season began, we always knew there would be days like these but that insight doesn’t make it feel any better.

This was as disjointed and mindless as the worst days of Redknapp and Villas-Boas. Ineffective in attack, scarily poor at the back and unable to shake themselves out of it. By the finish I was wistfully dreaming of an indiscriminate whack forward into the box, that’s what I was reduced to, but we couldn’t even do that, or get a corner past the near post.

Empty spaces in the stands – Stubhub had over 800 tickets available on Saturday night. These 1.30 kick-offs are taking their toll. The scores from Leicester-United generated the only buzz in the second half. I don’t get that myself but it shows attention was elsewhere.

Dembele’s performance summed up Spurs’ day. He has looked eager and positive since he came back into the team. Like others, Rose, Kane and Dier notably, he’s responded to the competition for places. Also, and perhaps more importantly, he seems to have got over the thigh injury that plagued him for most of last season. He starts as one of the two defensive midfielders but can push up when we have the ball, giving us four in midfield plus Capoue staying back to cover and allowing midfielders’ runs into the box. It’s an important position if it works and he has the ability to put it into practice.

In the first half he was busy, making a couple of good interceptions and shifting the ball around more quickly than he did last season. He showed he has another gear. However, as the half wore on, he was twice caught in possession, potentially fatal for a DM with no cover behind him. Also, at one point he preferred to hold onto the ball rather than find the runner ahead of him, Rose I think, can’t be sure.

That this is noteworthy says everything about the game. I can recall this moment because we had runners in space so infrequently. There were a few oohs and ahhs in the first half as some crosses came in, Rose timing his runs well to give us much-needed width, and a double attempt (double-cross?) from Eriksen which two Spurs forwards just failed to get a toe on. Otherwise I don’t remember Foster making a single save until Soldado steered Lamela’s lightening cross straight at him, deep in the second half.

The first half faded away but any anticipation that we would get going after half-time was swiftly dispelled. Rather, we sunk into a quagmire of uncertainty and apathy. Constantly giving the ball away, unable to pass to a white shirt.

This was also Pochettino’s worst game so far. This was the first time the players failed to respond to him. In the second half he was gesturing on the touchline like John McCririck on PCP, a demented tic-tac man vainly trying to change the odds in our favour. At one point he was miming bending runs and movement but I couldn’t spot a single player taking any notice.

WBA played a disciplined 4-4-1-1 but we had no idea how to get round that midfield four. Poch brought on Soldado and Paulinho for Dembele and Chadli, the only time I noticed he was on the pitch. Eriksen went left, Lamela wide right. This took Eriksen out of the game, a fact recognised later when he came back central when Lennon came on to at least take the ball to our opponents. Then, moving the ball from deep, half the players split to shape up for the old formation while five others pushed right up, leaving a 50 yard gap between back and front. Half the players were on one formation, half another. In the end, the forwards stood and waited for the ball to reach them.

Little things – man-marking at corners, Chiriches dutifully followed Sessignon even when the WBA man jogged out of the area for a short corner. Our centre back therefore taken out of the box for a corner.This is not to excuse the players. Eriksen has to get more involved even if that means he comes deeper. Yesterday he played in fits and starts. Lamela has blindingly quick feet but was stifled for the most part. As I’ve said before, Chadli is a talented player who is happy if the game is played at his pace and others do the work for him. In the PL, that’s a luxury we can’t afford. Soldado came on to a big cheer and got everything wrong. Manu furiously berated his team-mates near the end for not getting onto the end of his fine flick-on into the box but I’m sure they were as surprised as I was that he had actually won anything.

At the back, Rose did well but could not advance in the second half. By the time the game ended, the collective sharp intake of breath whenever Chiriches came near the ball was audible. You could almost smell his fear. His attempt to tackle a player at the edge of our box by rolling the ball under his foot for a clever turn was certainly a first for me. Luckily he managed to fumble his way out of it. Awful.

The winning goal was in keeping with our performance, an average-sized bloke jumping unmarked to head in from eight yards out. Credit to the Baggies. They kept to their shape throughout, worked hard from first to last and attacked whenever possible to keep the pressure on us. The better side won.

I do the Spurs preview for a fellow blogger who has a West Brom site. This week he asked a question about hopes for the season. I answered that what’s most important for me is that we show clear signs of longer term progress and have a two or three year plan to move the club forward on and off the pitch. That process will be painful at times but there’s no getting away from it: yesterday we were p*ss poor.

Voting has begun for the Football Blogging Awards 2014. Numbers of votes count at this stage so I would be eternally grateful if you could click the logo in the sidebar for Tottenham On My Mind in the Best Club Blog category  How about it for an old-fashioned, one man blog up against the big boys. Bless you.

Yesterday Spurs meekly succumbed to Liverpool’s power, pace and team-work. Rodgers and Pochettino are disciples of the new football, play at pace, work as a unit with and without the ball and press until the life is squeezed from your opponent. Three games, 12 goals with none in reply, show the Reds are streets ahead. It’s what you’d expect, given the constant chopping and changing in the Spurs ranks. Remember that the Liverpool board gave Rodgers the time he needs, let’s give Pochettino the same opportunities. In the meantime, his players need to start by giving more effort than was on display in this sorry effort.

The referee’s whistle was the signal for Liverpool to launch a ferocious assault on the Tottenham defences. They hurled themselves at every Spurs player who had the temerity to have the ball at their feet, two or three men blocking, hustling, niggling in a frenzy of pressing. The intensity was terrifying and Spurs had no escape. Trapped, we repeatedly conceded possession and Liverpool pounced with the same high-speed passion in attack.

Balotelli missed from close-range, Lloris getting down quickly to save his low header, before a poor clearance from a penned-in defence led to a lightning break and cross that found Sterling at the far post. It could have been one of several Liverpool forwards – we were all over the place.

That early onslaught finally abated after twenty minutes, by which time the game had been won and lost. There were other moments, including a highly debateable penalty, but the Spurs midfield were shattered and never recovered from the shock. The forward midfield three, so prominent against QPR, were utterly ineffective. Chadli posed and preened but allowed the game to pass him by, as he tends to do unless it’s played at a pace that suits him. Lamela kept going but discovered in a generally central role just how little room there is in a PL midfield. Bentaleb was swamped. Eriksen was the most disappointing, a man who has the ability to make an impact but who faded away before being substituted ignominiously early in the second half.

Only Capoue resisted, working hard throughout the match to break up opposition attacks. He was Spurs best player and you wonder what we missed last season when he was persona non grata.

After twenty minutes Liverpool funnelled back but still controlled the game, pressing but from starting positions ten or 15 yards closer to their goal. Adebayor’s lob went just over and the Reds missed a couple more, including another Ballotelli effort, wide after a howler of a fluffed Lloris clearance left an open goal. Chadli had our best, indeed only chance, catching a high ball well but it was too close to the keeper. Mignolet made his only proper save of the entire match. It offered a tantalising glimpse of surprising vulnerability in the Liverpool defence that Spurs never again exploited.

Despite being decidedly second best, being only one behind at half-time meant we were still in it. That changed when Liverpool were awarded a penalty. As Dier came across Joe Allen, his arm clipped Allen’s, who thereupon hurled himself into row K and the ref gave it without a moment’s hesitation.

My gripe with penalties like this one is they defy the laws of physics, never mind the laws of football. In the outermost reaches of the universe, galaxies and black holes are created and destroyed according to immutable laws of matter, mass and motion. Yet entering a Premier League penalty box is like going through a portal into another, parallel reality where these laws apparently do not apply or if they do, are random and inconsistent.

There was contact and Dier should have known better but neither in themselves are reasons to give a foul. There is no possible way that knocking Allen’s arm could have led to him falling in that way. It did not have anywhere near the force to cause him to lose his footing. Matter, mass and motion. A rugby player in a similar situation would not have gone over, instead would probably have dismissed it as having the power of an insect momentarily landing on his or her arm. A distance runner would not have gone over if they had been jostled in the 10k.

And that’s never mind the outbreak of WWE every corner. Or the fact that those incidents were never, ever given as fouls until comparatively recently. Or the referee missing a huge tug on Adebayor’s shirt, so big that you could hear a cartoon sound-effect ‘boing’ when the fouler let go.

Both have an incentive to stay upright and until footballers have the same, the diving will go on. This isn’t about Liverpool, Allen or any team – Spurs players have done exactly the same. It’s about the game. If referees stopped giving those oh-so-modern fouls, the players would stop falling over so easily.

Dier is promising but he showed his inexperience in allowing the possibility of a penalty. He looks like the sort of player who learns quickly: let’s hope his team-mates do the same. Pochettino has had five competitive games with his squad, Rodgers has had a hundred and boy did it show. Throughout Spurs failed on the basics – pressing together without the ball, making themselves available for team-mates with it. Back to the bad old days of looking up, finding nothing was on, trying to beat an opponent then getting caught. Time and again we lost possession.

Two down, Pochettino kept up his policy of active substitutions by bringing on Dembele and Townsend. His plans were destroyed by the winger’s first touch. Receiving the ball 60 yards from his own goal, he foolishly tried a drag back. Promptly tackled, Moreno ran most of that distance to our goal without being challenged. Covering the Liverpool forward line, we failed to get in the way of the man with the ball. A fine goal but entirely avoidable. My fear for Townsend is that these problems of poor choices and not knowing when to do the simple lay-off were around 4 seasons ago when Redknapp gave him his debut. That said, play him on the left where he can run at defenders.

My worry that Kaboul will never be the same player after his injuries is sadly being supported by the evidence. He was dreadful. Vertoghen did not stand out, except as backdrop as Sterling whizzed past him. Lloris made valuable saves but his poor distribution in the first half increased the pressure on an already beleaguered team.

Time to draw breath and work on that system.