... But keeping it is another.
Spurs have shown a few times in recent years the flare of the dynamic Redknapp year(s), except on Saturday what they did was in many ways leaps and bounds ahead of what you would have expected Bale, Modric, VDV and co to have done because these were kids, products of youth academies, as are most footballers, but these are playing on one of the toughest stages in the world and beating the world beaters.
Last year, Kane and co., disposed of Chelsea in a similar cavalier fashion, but the defence last year had pockets that got picked, a lot. Against an arguably much better Man City side, Spurs came back from a seemingly desperate situation - they might have only been 1-0 down, but they were second best to City in almost every department, while, remarkably, not looking half bad - City were just up for it and if it hadn't been for Captain Marveaux Hugo Lloris, we could have been 3 or 4 down and finding out just how much character this young team has.
Instead, the rub of the green evened out and we got a goal from a position that should have been a free kick for the opposition and Eric Dier continued to silence the people who don't believe he has the ability to be a holding midfielder with a cracking, skidding, half-volley that pinged in off the post and you know what they say about a goal on the stroke of half-time?
Over the last couple of years, I hate to admit it, but this is a fixture I tend to make sure I'm out for. The number of times in recent years I've checked my phone and my heart has sunk at the amount of goals we've shipped. This year, the early kick off meant I had no real excuse, so I sat down to the second half expecting a rear-guard action and probably us losing valiantly to an injury time winner from Toure or bloody Raheem Sterling and the second half started exactly how I expected it, except... instead of sitting back, we took the game to City and started probing them with a lot of unexpected forward balls.
There was a point at 2-1 when instead of panicking I watched the dodgy feed and thought, "we're going to tear them apart; they look utterly lost." And that's what happened; the 4-1 score line actually could have been more had the linesman been consistent and allowed Son's offside goal and the hapless City keeper not actually done his job a couple of times. The other thing that made me happy was our substitutions seemed to benefit from the team playing so well, because N'Jie looks a dazzling proposition and suddenly the question marks over our goalscoring capabilities are forgotten.
The performance was stunning and now, the question a lot, if not most, of the supporters are thinking is 'can we keep it up?' This has always been the problem with Spurs, but let's just have a look at the improvement. They were the better side at Old Trafford and lost by an own goal; they ran out of steam against Stoke and Leicester were arguably the better side but they came away with a difficult point. The Sunderland and Palace victories might have been 1-0 but both of them were, shout it, victories, and as The Arse will contest, any victory is 3 points.
So far the team looked like it was in need of clicking; there were good individual performances but also mistakes and you have to expect that from any team at the start of the season and more savvy teams will benefit not just from that but also from lapses of concentration that a younger side might be more prone to do, especially when they're coasting to victory. When it has clicked the team have looked good, they just haven't finished moves and that led to the single striker furore when the transfer window closed. I think we saw as near as damn it Pochettino's starting 11 on Saturday and it's going to be tough for Mason and Bentaleb to break back into that when they're fit, because Deli Alli plays with an assurance that belies his age (he's 19) and Eric Dier looks the part more and more every game and all that must thrill Roy Hodgson.
In fact, watching Spurs must really please any advocate of playing youth and watching them succeed; because let's not dismiss this win, it was a crushing defeat for a would-be champion side and it was done with a style that would have made the casual observer think that it was Spurs who would be there in May and not City. There have been false dawns aplenty in my life as a Spurs fan, but there is something extremely likeable about this young side and something that teams are going to start fearing. A top 4 spot is a long way away, but if teams such as Liverpool and especially Chelsea don't start stringing together results and we do, then two of our rivals for that spot will be playing catch up and against this hungry and ambitious bunch of kids that's not going to be easy.
It's the 'inferior' opposition they need to worry about; because if teams don't give players like Lamela the room to prove his worth the frustrations mount again. Pochettino needs to address our weakness in being unable to consistently beat teams we should be beating, specifically at home. It would be nice to turn White Hart Lane into a fortress just once before we move to the new stadium and that will only happen if they don't get complacent against sides they think they should be beating. That's the final - missing - piece in the jigsaw and none of the previous managers have been able to find it.
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