Just before 2am on Sunday morning, this column was looking a lot more sombre. Tottenham, and their manager, some bloke from Melbourne that you might have heard of, were staring down the barrel of a pretty embarrassing moment.
Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs are the Premier League’s vibes train, a pure rush of goodwill that has turned a club so prone to collapse that they have their own adjective for such performances, into the sort that don’t know when they’re beat.
If only he’d come up with a pithy catchphrase at Celtic to describe such a propensity for late action.
For well over 90 minutes, it had looked like the thing that all neutrals – and, indeed, those tasked with writing columns about the Premier League – would be taken away.
Now, somebody’s 0 has got to go in the North London Derby next week as Ange’s Tottenham travel to Arsenal next Sunday night in a battle of unbeaten sides. 11pm, Optus Sport, see you there.
There was other football played too, by the way. Chelsea and United remain Chelsea and United – more on which later – while Liverpool and Manchester City are the other two slides not to face defeat, having both come from behind to record victories that might pose more questions than they answer.
There was a fair bit of bleh in there too – some sources claim that Fulham 1-0 Luton Town happened, but historians are split – so let’s not mess around. It’s wrap time.
Ange raised the metaphorical bat for 50 home games without defeat this weekend, spread from Japan to Scotland to London, but that milestone was in a hell of a lot of doubt for a long, long time.
The nature of the Sheffield United win was as much pure Angeball as, well, the nature of the performance that saw Spurs needing to score twice in deep added on time to get it.
Richarlison, after plenty of emotion in the week for Brazil, got a goal and Dejan Kulusevski, quiet so far this season, scored from a classic Ange cutback into the centre of the goal, the sort of high quality chance his whole system is designed to create time and again.
Prior to that, however, Tottenham had spurned several such chances and conceded the softest of goals to Gustavo Hamer, fresh off the back of other chances that were equally soft.
It was a reminder of how young this project is. As much as Tottenham now have four wins on the bounce and sit second in the table, it’s not exactly been plain sailing, and they are a million miles from a finished article.
Their first two games could have gone either way and their underlying numbers – small sample size klaxon – would have them behind Arsenal, Liverpool and, indeed, Chelsea. It suggests that they might be running a little hot at the moment.
When the fall comes, and it inevitably will, it will likely be because Spurs waste chances and then get punished on the counter, or by teams that press well and stop the build up.
A year ago, we saw this writ large as Celtic played well but were ruthlessly punished in the Champions League in exactly such a fashion.
Ange’s Hoops struggled badly with a fairly average Shakhtar Donetsk, albeit with a different Mikhailo Mudryk to the one currently playing for Chelsea, and a good RB Leipzig, plus an exceptionally good Real Madrid.
In the Premier League, the fixture list now has Spurs travelling to Arsenal, who play a similar style but better, then Liverpool, who are deluxe RB Leipzig. We’ll find out a lot.
But: Ange, in the unlikely event that he reads The Roar, could fire straight into the comments section with the retort that at this stage, points don’t really matter.
His remit in this stage of his reign is to change the style, rebuild hope and make people like Spurs again. On that level, he’s succeeding beyond the wildest of expectations.
The fear for Angepologists was that he wouldn’t get the chance to implement his style and actually shape a team. That’s gone now. It would be mad for Spurs, even with their reputation for Spursing it up, not to back their man now.
If there is a team that has took over the Spurs mantle, it might well be Chelsea. They are fifth on that underlying numbers table, but 14th on the one that matters, with only a home win over Luton Town to point to from their opening five games.
Well, they could point to the bank balance, right? Between them and Manchester United, who were thwacked 3-1 at home by Brighton, this was a bad weekend for throwing cash at your team and hoping that it sticks.
Chelsea have scored five goals all year, so it isn’t hard to work out where their problem lies.
They’ve had the same issue for ages, and despite signing 400 expensive attacking midfielders, haven’t invested in a reliable striker. Nicolas Jackson, their centre forward, barely got a sniff on Sunday against Bournemouth.
There’s enough talent in the team to suggest that things will change, and Mauricio Pochettino is plenty good enough as a manager. But, in football, perception is a huge deal.
Other teams know that they struggle to score, so it’s very easy to sit in, play on the break and put men between the ball and the goal. Plenty try that against Man City and Arsenal, or even Spurs and Liverpool, but the difference now is that do so in hope rather than expectation.
If you sit in against Chelsea, you’ve got a chance because they’ll waste chances. Yes, there were injuries here, but the players available had plenty enough in them to get it done.
Manchester United have a totally different problem. They have players who either aren’t playing or aren’t allowed to play, and those that are don’t seem to know what they’re meant to do.
In the other corner, Roberto di Zerbi’s Brighton know exactly what they are, what they do and why they do it. That’s why they can sell players and immediately replace them.
Perhaps the biggest irony is that Erik ten Hag is a master of this: he took Ajax to the semis of the Champions League by playing exactly the sort of inventive, punching-up football that Brighton play.
His purpose at United is to bring that to a big club. Maybe, like Graham Potter found out at Chelsea, it just isn’t possible.
A 3-0 defeat at home to Brighton is pretty bad, but not as bad as the nature of it. It was expected. United didn’t dominate the ball, didn’t threaten much when they had it and were played through with relative ease.
They get Bayern Munich away this week and will be absolutely flogged, but are lucky enough to have a run of six that includes four at home, plus two promoted sides away, before City roll into Old Trafford.
Ten Hag gets a chance to fix it. If he doesn’t, things will get very ugly indeed.
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Here is the way the Roar expert panel sees all the action unfolding across the final weekend of play prior to the semi-finals.
