The meaning of a victory can often be found not in the league table but in the way it is achieved. Three points from the champions on the opening day is the best possible start for new manager Nuno and kickstarts Spurs’ campaign into life. Defeating the champions is satisfying on any day of the season.

But with this one, the feeling around a victory has a lasting significance beyond the three points. Welcome to Nuno’s Spurs, working for and off each other with purpose and intent, their motivation beyond doubt, who after a sticky start declined City’s offer to give ground and roll over.

Always try to look forward. Strive to improve. But expunge the ghosts of the past to ensure progress is possible. The crowd’s growing exuberance reflected events on the field, then as the intensity increased, so did the noise from the stands. This wasn’t just about City, it was the growing realisation that change was in the air, that a burden was lifted from our shoulders. Spurs were dragging themselves bodily out of the emotional quicksand of a horrendous 18 months and that’s cause for celebration.

There’s a skip in the step this week, a twinkle in the eye. This feels like a new beginning, fans and players closer again.  It’s us not them, us not him, team not me me me. And people rediscovering how to be fans, celebrating just being there and rejoicing in the very thing that enticed us in the first place and never let us go, the collective experience of being together.

I see Tottenham’s future, and I name it Tanganga’s eyebrows. The pressure’s extreme, cauldron of noise, his expression is one of mild surprise, bordering on the ironic, with a little bemusement on the side. Man-to-man on an England star, one of the quickest and trickiest in the league, fine by him, eyebrows raised. Ref’s on at him, eyebrows raised. Pep’s having one of his passive aggressive chats, expression unmoved. Just run back and get on with the game, eh Pep.

Lot of Spurs love coming your way, Japh. Tackling – remember that? You probably don’t know what I’m talking about if you’re under 25. He won’t back down. He came with that approach in his debut against Liverpool, two early challenges on Mane, don’t let him turn, he’s mine. Taken a while but here it is again.

Nuno is Lazarus by proxy. It’s a fallacy to believe he is wedded to defensive football. Rather, he’s pragmatic and adaptable with a variety of tactical approaches to shape the players he has at his disposal. The Kane saga has gone a long way to deflect attention from the considerable task faced by our new manager, in overcoming the poisonous legacy of his predecessor. He inherits a unbalanced squad with core weaknesses in central defence and midfield and potentially no central striker. Reinforcements are on their way but he will have to make something of what we already have. He must resurrect the flagging careers of players like Dier, Sanchez and Dele, give Moura and Lo Celso some direction. Teach Reguilon defensive discipline. He’s done much already in a very short space of time. Ndombele is already beginning to feel like a lost cause.

Gollini and Romero have in common a front-foot approach to defending. They don’t sit back and wait for things to happen, and this epitomises Nuno’s strategy, at least on the evidence of Sunday’s match. We defended in depth but were never passive. Pressing and harrying were the orders of the day, including deep inside our own half. Dele led the way. While Skipp’s return from his successful loan at Norwich is rich with promise, Dele has to reinvent himself as a midfielder in deeper positions than he is used to, or indeed prefers, in this case a highly successful stint on the left of Nuno’s 4-3-3. When City did break through, Dier and Sanchez stayed in their shape, refusing to be tempted out of position.

Nuno brings us closer together. Easy to forget that not so long ago, the players skulked in the dressing room, afraid to emerge after the final game of the season. Stewards were apparently instructed to tell fans to go home, fans consigned to the top tiers, as far away as possible from the pitch and who paid ticket prices that were effectively increased. How to alienate a fanbase in one painful lesson.

There is warmth about him, a passion for the game and for doing his best that endeared him to Wolves’ supporters. More than understanding the club’s heritage, he respects it. Tottenham means something to fans who unlike the players and managers are not just passing through. Stony faced at the final whistle, head still in the game, by the time he went down the tunnel a few minutes later he had defrosted, warmly greeting the Spurs fans delightedly high fiving him.

Nuno is who we need right now. Spurs need to build again after chucking away years of hard-earned progress. Paratici is working with him, not against him, let us hope Levy understands that he too should collaborate, not go his own way. Past experience suggests he does not learn lessons, and the recent exodus of non-playing staff implies he does not work well with others but again, time will tell.

There’s something else.

There’s a noir from the forties, can’t recall the name, where a nefarious nightclub owner decides to renege on a business deal to put one over on another party.  He icily dismisses the objections of the leading woman, who by this point is beginning to doubt the good intentions of her employer: “there’s profit and loss, everything else is just conversation.”

City want to buy Harry Kane. Closer to deadline day, they will make an offer closer to his market value than the £100m Spurs declined. They will try to get away with the lowest possible figure. Spurs may sell, they may not. I think they will, hope I’m wrong. They will try to get away with the highest possible figure, then decide nearer deadline day. It’s a transfer negotiation. This is what happens. Profit and loss.

All I need to know about Harry Kane is that he doesn’t want to play for Spurs. Everything else is transfer game-playing, with both parties playing the PR game. Don’t play it if they try to get you on their side, they’re just using you and me if you let them.

Charlie Kane should know better than to play transfer poker with Daniel Levy. His achievement in making Levy look the good guy is remarkable. Not easy but Charlie’s done it. Spurs knew all along how this part of the saga would play out. Saved 200k, onus back on City to bid. The rest fills airtime and the back pages but Charlie’s blundering PR makes little difference to what matters to the family in the end, the pounds, shillings and pence in the contract, whether it’s signed by Spurs or City.

Harry Kane is one of the greatest players I’ve seen in over fifty years at Spurs. The goals, the dedication, the moments, the dazzle of some of those goals, the leadership. The shiver of anticipation when the ball is passed to him, 35 or 40 yards out, around him there’s movement, something is going to happen. The possibilities.

I judge players by way of a mental balance sheet, a set of old-fashioned scales. On one side, what they have given to me and to the team, on the other, the bad days and the (almost) inevitable parting. The emotional profit and loss. The scales tip heavily in Harry’s favour and always will.

I recognise that he wants to go, understand the reasons why and don’t confuse my intense disappointment with anger or rejection. Many Spurs fans have found it too easy to reinvent the past and dismiss one of the very best. We had a whale of a time together, don’t erase that from your memory, because in the end, memories are all we have. ‘My ex was clever, funny and loving but she never put the bins out of a Thursday, so that’s it for me.’ What irritates me is the way some Spurs fans have responded by adopting facile and obtuse forms of criticism typically heard from fans of other clubs, such as the idea that he doesn’t turn up for big games. Be angry, be sad but don’t descend so low.

That said, it is right and proper to accuse Harry and his people of seriously misjudging the extent to which Spurs fans support him in the face of relentless, unjustified criticism from fans of other clubs. Because he has a place in our hearts, fans stand up for him. A few words of acknowledgement of that, now rather than later, would have gone down well. As it is, there will be only bitterness and a huge fee. You should have done better, Harry. It’s all money in the end but that’s a conversation we would have appreciated.

Two years ago almost to the day, was one of the absolute best days in my fifty years of being a Spurs fan. I travelled to the ground to collect my tickets for the Champions League final. The air around the ground crackled with anticipation. Everyone was smiling as we stood in the queue. The senior steward said in forty years, he had never seen people so happy. We shared our stories of the scramble to make travel arrangements, where we were when Moura’s goal went in and most of all, our sheer surprise and delight at being there. We couldn’t find the right words. We shook our heads and gazed into the middle distance in disbelief and wonder.

This fan reaction transcends league position, top four and the pursuit of trophies. It’s the manner in which this had been achieved. Fans, team and manager never closer. They had given their all and surpassed all our expectations. One of our own is more than a chant, it’s an expression of faith.

And so to last night, a sour, bitter occasion, fans in the top tiers a physical representation of the abyss that now separates the club and disillusioned, disassociated supporters. Last night’s performance was appalling. Beyond blaming individuals, the interim manager, the end of season, it was simply beyond belief, one of those games where you can’t comprehend why and how professional players should all play so badly. Some of our defending was astonishingly poor, as if these were, say, individuals from another culture with a notion of how football works but who have never actually played it before.

Step out of our Tottenham bubble for a moment. Football welcomed back the fans. Watching games this week, you could see the pleasure it gave supporters, just to be back, to be back home. But Spurs are having none of this. Pre-match reading from the chairman, a series of bland platitudes about “the values of our great club”, dripping with contempt and hypocrisy from someone who has consistently claimed to the custodian of our heritage, and just as consistently fails to graps what this means for fans and for the team.

Clubs across the PL reduce prices as a small gesture of gratitude, in Burnley’s case it was free. Not much, but it’s something, it’s recognition that it’s been hard for fans, that there is a relationship. That fans exist. But Spurs charge the most, £60 which for seats behind the goal represents an increase. Free food, and they seemed surprised when fans actually ate it and it ran out. Fans in the top tier, as far away from the players as possible, thereby chucking away the value of home support for the team, relegated to TV background noise. Players scuttling off the pitch at the final whistle, their only thought to get away as quickly as they could. An apparent refusal to emerge for the traditional lap of appreciation (doesn’t matter what you think of it, it always happens, it’s recognition, it’s a relationship), only to appear 30 minutes later when a mere few hundred stubborn die-hards were scattered around the cavernous stands. Harry stayed, in tears.

This all takes place in a context, where the club’s botched attempt to play with the big boys exposed their misdirection and untruths, which served to create unity among usually partisan football fans in their derision for the project. And this is how Spurs chose to respond. A group of senior officials and board members presumably sat down and decided this was how to do it. This was their considered response.

Fans enter willingly into an unholy, unbalanced relationship with the club they decide to support. Fans take the vicissitudes of football fortune in their stride. We don’t expect too much from a club. It can be a real slog but that becomes a badge of honour, of fidelity and commitment. We don’t expect much but want something back. Occasional recognition of what that devotion means in our everyday lives. Being treated as an individual, not a customer number, and all that relationship implies. On the field, success helps but players who are fully committed matter more. For what it’s worth, I study this stuff as well as live it at Tottenham, and pretty much all fans across the leagues have this in common. We don’t expect much but we do want something back. The Tottenham board would do well to reflect on their recent actions in this light. Start with not taking us for granted.

Tottenham fans of successive generations can deal with the average and the mediocre. We’ve had some practice after all. It’s been embraced as a sign of a deep loyalty and commitment that goes beyond on field success, in contrast to the excruciating entitlement of younger fans of some of our rivals. But has there ever been a time when we have wilfully thrown away so much in so short a period?

Chatting about this on twitter last night, fellow supporters came up with a few rivals, the Graham and Francis years, the early nineties, failure to capitalise on Pleat’s groundbreaking 1987 team, or my lowest point, Pleat’s caretaker spell after Hoddle was sacked when Levy was prepared to mark time near the bottom of the table for several months with a midfield of a combined age approaching a hundred and no permanent manager.

But this is dereliction of duty on another level. I hesitate to use the word achievement to describe this potentially catastrophic shambles, but it is a remarkable series of decisions to dispose of an unprecedented level of goodwill, a fine manager playing in our club tradition, the buzz of the new stadium, umpteen seasons of top six finisishes, alienated Kane and leave a team denuded of quality with no manager.

Any analysis of how we have fallen has no neatly delineated starting point, no big bang. Levy’s failure to fully support Pochettino in the market, which I wrote about at the time rather in retrospect, is a tipping point in the club’s history. Levy compounded his gross error with the vanity appointment of Jose Mourinho, again covered in past pieces, a manager and club that was always an ill-fitting match. Spurs needed a manager who could rebuild an ailing squad over time on a limited budget, with the patience to bring players through and find value in the market. Everything that Mourinho is not in other words, and to be fair to him, has never pretended to be.

His legacy is a divided, fractured squad, mentally and physically unfit, ill-coached and drained of confidence. If you think this is bad, remember that there could be worse to come. Spurs are, I assume, short of money, the team needs major rebuilding and rejuvenation, with the deficiencies of individual players ruthlessly exposed over the last few months. This is urgent but we have no manager. When an international tournament takes place, little transfer business gets done until it is over.

I didn’t go last night, so it is a sobering thought that I may never see Harry Kane play in a Spurs shirt ever again. He may or may not go, but that’s not the point. Our main man, our goalscorer, provider, our inspiration, our own, wants to leave. It is utterly dispiriting that it has come to this, that our club stretches the loyalty of such a dedicated man to snapping point. It’s also a message to any player who Spurs want to buy – you really don’t want to be here.

If there is a productive way forward, supporters have to be at the very least involved, and may well take the lead. The outpouring of fury at the superleague proposals has led to several positive outcomes. Football supporters have been reminded of the connections between us, that what we have in common is greater than that which divides us, and the inestimable significance of the history of the English football pyramid. The government is involved. Meaningful proposals regarding an independent regulator are on the table.

There is a long way to go and much to be done, but these debates take place in a changed atmosphere, where those that run the game are compelled to take their responsibilities to supporters and to the English game more seriously. This is no revolution – we understand that clubs are businesses too – but the difference is, there should be limits to how far they can go, where fans are a factor and where large investment entities cannot exploit clubs without boundaries and limits being in place.

This is about supporters understanding what makes an impact. It is an understanding of what hurts people who run football clubs and run the game, and using that power for constructive change. I don’t condone any violence to individuals at the Old Trafford protest, but it made football sit up and take notice. Fans have been driven away from United by the actions of their owners, not by those protestors.

The Spurs board’s decision to enable fan representation on the board is a major concession in response to concerted pressure from the Trust, angry fans and sustained, organised co-operation between representatives of supporters’ groups, where our Trust has been extremely active. I’m a member of the Trust and voted for the motion for directors to step down. It brought home to board members the anger of supporters, that they bear personal responsibility for where we are and that there are potential consequences, in case for their status. It also offered a way forward in the form of fan representation.

Regular readers of Tottenham On My Mind know that I blog as myself, openly. My life’s work as a social worker is fundamentally about mediation and talking problems through to find a mutually beneficial outcome. So I do not come lightly to such action. But sometimes, and only after all other opportunities have been exhausted, you have to draw a line. In this case, the Trust despite their scepticism, regularly discussed these matters with the board, and the board lied over an extended period. So draw a line, and then talk about that.

Anyone who has been part of trade union negotiation knows this. Draw the line, keep talking and it focusses minds, from which change emerges. I strongly suspect the club did not expect this reaction. In their statement, they say they did not realise the ESL plans were so far advanced. This is entirely implausible. This is Daniel Levy. Financially prudent, cautious and risk-averse.

I believe Spurs were part of the ESL Sordid Six from early days. Derided because of our lack of success on the field, this in fact makes us prime candidates. We desperately need to be part of the ESL precisely because we’re not doing well on the pitch. This is the only way we could guarantee the promised riches, and we needed it now for fear of falling behind. We’re good for the others because we have big crowds, loyal fans, and are 10^th in the money league. Plus, our bargaining position is not strong. Weak, willing and wealthy, to the ESL members we were the perfect partners.  

Their idea of calling for compromise is to have a dig at the Trust. Thus they reveal their tactics, divide and rule. Undermine the Trust because they are the best representatives of supporter interests that we have. The club scrutinize social media. They know many do not support the Trust actions for various reasons. Fine, fans express their support in different ways but let’s be clear – in this instance this are tactics to divide and rule, as is the undecided method of electing the board member, so progress but beware.  

Last week, you may have seen Ajax’s gesture to their fans, where they melted down one of their trophies into a star for every one of their season ticket holders. Not possible at Spurs because our only silverware is a couple of chocolate coins down the back of the boardroom sofa after the kids Christmas party. It’s also not possible because the board would never think of anything like that. Ajax, another multimillion-pound company, have a different concept of their relationship with supporters. It’s a symbol of something different, something meaningful, of giving something back. At Tottenham, we get a free burger, provided they haven’t run out.

This has become, without me trying, an end of season appraisal before the season has finished. Perhaps this is me wishing it would all go away, where the final league position becomes a secondary consideration as supporters reel from the damage inflicted on our club. Where good judges suggest a lower league position is something to be thankful for because we miss out on a third tier European competition.

Worst for me, I realise I have to end with something I never thought I would have to say. Spurs are part of my life, but I’m glad I didn’t go last night.

Yesterday was a good day. After 48 hours of concerted fan protest around the country, the only competition left for the rats was who could be first to leave the sinking ship. It was a joy to behold.

Less a campaign – there wasn’t time to organise – more an outcry, supporters rose above the tribalism that the football powers bank on to undermine fan solidarity to discover and express a common interest. You and I have lived through and been part of an historic moment in English football. Nothing like this has ever happened before, where fans united in dissent to alter the direction of the game itself. That’s not an exaggeration while I am still high on exaltation. History is being written as I type. English fans just do not behave like this.

There will be other battles. For now, we’re left to think about the implications of what this means at Tottenham. Spurs’ impudence to attach themselves to Europe’s so-called big 12 was widely derided, but please pay attention at the back, we are 10^th and rising in the league table that mattered, the Deloitte’s European club rich list. Levy wasn’t hanging on anyone’s coattails, he was there from the early days. It was City and Chelsea who came on board late (which made it easier for them to jump off) because they have other sources of income. Levy made sure he had a seat at the top table because he didn’t want to get left behind. Play the financials rather than invest in a winning side and earn status on the pitch. It’s what he does.

It was a catastrophic misjudgement. He’s left humiliated, looking like a fool, and the worst kind at that, an arrogant fool, out of touch with football and the supporters. What appears to be an astonishing, baffling miscalculation can be understood by looking at his relationship with fans. I’ve never met him, but I know many people who have, and they say he genuinely cares about the club as owner and as a fan. Yet he like many people running other clubs fails to understand what supporters want and how they wish to be treated.

I know this sounds oddly simplistic but I’ve spoken over the years to supporters’ organisations, club liaison officers and consultants involved in the game , and they all say the same thing. People who run football just don’t get it. Worse still, they think they do. They do surveys. They take feedback. They meet with the Trust. They meet with other chairs. But they don’t understand us. They avoid interaction. They may engage in dialogue, but they don’t respond. Their definition of participation does not include giving fans any power.

Levy’s callous, contemptuous approach towards me and you has been exposed. We are ‘legacy fans’, left behind in favour of the ‘fans of the future’, the wet dream of thrusting marketing professionals who see us as commodities and income sources. AI creates robots with more human emotion than these people see in us, in you and me.

Levy is telling me that a lifetime of support and profound emotional commitment is worthless. Being a Spurs fan is part of who I am. It’s not something I do on a Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours. It never goes away and I don’t want it to. Family, friendships, identity all chucked out of the window so the viewing figures can go up. How many times have I written and talked about my pride in Spurs’ history and heritage? The club cuts that off in a heartbeat. It means everything to me, nothing to them.

I knew this already. We all do. Some have had enough and hung up their scarf and season ticket for the last time. I don’t blame them. But fans come to an accommodation with this cognitive dissonance. It’s a game we all play to a greater or lesser extent. For me, I tell myself that why should I give up a lifetime of support, something that has driven and sustained me for nigh on 60 years, just because of the people who run the club now.

The way I support my team is essentially no different to how it was when I began in the mid-60s, or how generations of fans have walked up and down the High Road for over 130 years. Go to the game and get behind the team. Enjoy the good times, commiserate with mates during the bad times, and see you next week. The game is the same, faster and more athletic, but in essence no different. It’s the hype and blather that has changed, so turn it off and enjoy the match.

Yes, I am a legacy fan, yes I’m proud of it and I’m not going away. An important part of that is understanding where I come from. I hope that if some good emerges from this sorry episode, it’s that fans recognise how much their club means to them. Being a supporter is not about instant gratification, it’s about being part of something much greater. We are connected. This is part of our DNA as English football fans, the connection between club and community, the ties with where our club originated, the ties that bind to other fans.

We are not a separate elite. We are part of the pyramid. I am the bloke in Madrid for the CL final, the bloke in the best stadium in Europe and the bloke having a quiet pint in the bar at Rusthall FC, going away to see Fisher FC. I support a team in the Premier League but I don’t feel any different from a loyal fan of any club in any league, and I express my support in the same way as they do. I feel closer to, say, Bury or AFC Wimbledon fans trying to save their clubs than I do to someone who goes to Spurs as a social event, has a nice meal and doesn’t care about the result. To me, there’s no them and us. That is what has made me so angry about the ESL, that it assumed we would all fall into line with exclusion and elitism.

Levy is fond of describing his role as that of a custodian, respectful of the club’s heritage. I believe he genuinely thinks that. The problem is that he does not grasp what that means or, more importantly, what he can do to nurture that heritage. He builds a stadium on the site of the old White Hart Lane, which is wonderful, and I know he is enormously proud of the ground, but only after fans protested in the surrounding streets about a move to Stratford. He wants to fill the seats but he doesn’t care who comes, as long as somebody does. He says the fans are great, then kicks us in the teeth. He thinks this is what we want. Yesterday, it was reported that he was surprised and concerned at the reaction to the proposed ESL. Like I said, he just doesn’t get it. Or maybe he does, and he just doesn’t care.

And in the immediate future, it’s we who will face the consequences, taunted and tainted by opposition fans as greedy and arrogant, even though we are not our club. Opposition fans urging their team on to take a special scalp, just as many did when football wanted Leicester to win the league in the closing stages of the 2015-16 season, therefore Spurs must be beaten along the way.

Levy also has a long-term plan for the club. He’s not going to spend recklessly on players, so we need to build over time to achieve that. Fine by me, except he has no sense of how to put this into practice either. He can’t pick a manager to lead us in the right direction or support the men he chooses. As CEO of multimillion-pound companies, he would complete due diligence on senior staff before appointing. Nothing that Mourinho came up with was unexpected. Every part of how he manages is known, as is the impact on his clubs. None of it is relevant to Levy’s heritage plan. Yet he was appointed, a huge mistake caused by Levy’s ego and poor football judgement that will cause long-term harm. He created a wedge between fans and the club. Spurs lag way behind, any momentum from previous years lost, with a daunting rebuilding task this summer. Good riddance.

This is the biggest challenge of Levy’s reign, history suggests he won’t be able to rise to it. In any other business, he’d be out the door as fast as you could say gratuitously inflated compensation package. But this is football. Even now, he’s making plans to dig in.

In the meantime, the very best of luck to Ryan Mason, Chris Powell (a long time Spurs fan) and Ledley. I’ll be smiling when they lead the team out at Wembley.

Finally, heartfelt thanks to the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust, whose opposition to the ESL was passionate and constructive, implacable and coherent. With no notice whatsoever, they got it together, for Spurs and nationally too.

You may have missed it. Probably turned off the television in disgust. I don’t blame you. But as the camera panned towards the celebrating Dinamo players, it caught a fleeting close-up of Ledley King, slumped in his seat and close to tears. Ledley transcends the tactics, formations, the personnel, because he feels it, and expressed what this abject capitulation means to all of us. Fans that is, not apparently to all the players, judging by their efforts.

A full post-mortem is required. For the moment, everybody involved has to accept a measure of responsibility. But this dreadful week exposed the truth, that at the core of the club lies not a beating heart but a toxic, rotting mess.

This week, we offered two disorganised, ill-disciplined and uncommitted performances in games where our very best was required. As a team and as individuals, nobody emerges with any credit. If you’re not playing well, at least run back, a couple of hard yards to defend, beyond so many of them last night. Inexcusable. And once again, Spurs sat back rather than aim to dominate periods of play.

Lloris confirmed this during the most revealing post-match interview I can recall. Describing the defeat as a disgrace, he stated that there is no togetherness in the team, that some do not follow the manager’s instructions and that those outside the starting team are not committed.

Tottenham always on my mind, and my mind is running away along rabbit-holes of analysis and blind alleys of interpretation. One day, The Lost Blogs will surface from an unemptied recycle bin to be clandestinely circulated among the diehards, like a Dylan bootleg from ’69. A glance at social media shows the fanbase is argumentative and irritable too. For now, this is what I know.

Mourinho was never the right man for Spurs. We needed someone able to rebuild a depleted squad over time, albeit one with potential, on finite resources and little in his admirable CV suggests he could do that. Levy was dazzled by his aura and reputation.

I wanted to be proved wrong.

After nearly 18 months, Mourinho has made no significant improvements to our performances. There have been highs and lows but no upward curve.

Spurs were failing over the final months of Pochettino’s time at the club, when his messages no longer inspired a group of players who should be grateful for what he enabled them to achieve. Mourinho has failed to create anything substantial to take its place.

It is not clear what Mourinho is trying to achieve. The NLD was one of those games were we as mere fans struggle to comprehend what the manager and players are thinking. Passive from the start against opponents not known for their defensive expertise. AFC players may as well have had a police escort down our right, the way they were repeatedly allowed through. Mourinho tries out different permutations. He looks like a rookie manager feeling his way. I had a brief conversation on Twitter to this effect with journalist Seb Bloor. Someone retweeted some of our tweets as part of the conversation, except by accident these were from months ago, expressing similar frustration yet they fitted perfectly. In Seb’s words, good and bad days but overall a zero-sum situation.

The home NLD, ultra-defensive but the players were highly motivated. The contrast with last Sunday could not have been greater. The players must take some responsibility for this. There are problems, but the committed leave those in the dressing room. If this were happening at another club, you’d see it for what it is, manager and players poles apart.

Players are professionals. Give everything and fans won’t complain. Holding back is unacceptable. Play with pride, if not for the manager then the shirt, and yourself.

Mourinho staked the house on the EL and the League Cup. He was right to do so. Spurs can score goals, and so we always have a chance in cup matches. Last night was a bitter blow. The odds were in our favour and we lost.

The League Cup is worth winning in and of itself. City are favourites but it’s a two horse race. Go for it. Enjoy it. Just remember that winning the League Cup won’t change anything. It won’t heal the malaise within the club. It is meaningless in terms of the future. The League Cup is often cited as a stepping stone in the building of a winning mentality, with Guardiola the best example. Except, City went on to win the league that same year. We won’t. Pep is still at City, building and rebuilding. Mourinho doesn’t hang around that long. Pep has

The best leaders take people with them. They motivate towards a common goal that will develop individuals through collective action and responsibility. Mourinho takes some players with him but neglects those he leaves behind. At say, Chelsea or Inter, that didn’t matter as much because of the quality of those he chose. At Spurs, we can’t afford that. He has to keep those who are not his favourites onside. In the here and now, he has to develop players because Levy won’t replace the squad wholesale. We need those players because we’ve played more matches than any other top side in Europe. Judging from Hugo’s comments, there’s a rift in the group.

In the here and now, Mourinho has to improve the team but there’s little evidence he is able to do so. Over the last couple of months, he’s said the players aren’t responding to him. Again, players have to take some responsibility for that but, right now, it’s an admission he’s not getting through to them and cannot effect change. He was brought into the club to give the team a winning mentality.

I cannot see how Mourinho can stay.

I cannot see Levy dismissing him before the end of the season.

And so we end once again with Daniel Levy. There’s a huge problem embedded deep within the club that goes beyond individual players and managers. Tottenham has become a fractious, conflict-ridden and unpleasant place to be. He has to take action to fulfil our potential and safeguard the future.

I concluded my last piece with a warning of what is at stake this summer. The squad has gaps. We need better players in key positions, notably centre half and deep-lying midfield. Harry needs a back-up. Plus, several squad members are in their thirties and their best years are behind them. Now we have to also weed out those who do not want to improve and be committed to the shirt. This is a big undertaking.

At the risk of labouring the point, I believe Spurs are sleepwalking towards the cliff edge. Building and rebuilding a team is a constant process. Complacency created by 15 years of top six and more is blinding us to what is necessary to sustain this.

This has been a bad week. Sometimes, for optimistic realists like me, being in a bad place focuses the mind. I’m worried about the future. The wrong move now by Levy could set us back several years compared with rivals. Always one step up and two steps back. I want to be wrong.