It speaks volumes of Paulinho’s attitude and aptitude that the first images of him grimacing with a red scarf ahead of his move to Guangzhou Evergrande were met with near celebration from Tottenham fans.

The Brazilian’s two year spell at Spurs could best be summarised with a resigned sigh, a cry of frustration, or the sound of ironic, delirious laughter. The ‘give him time’ defence subsided as his terrible performances wore on and it soon became patently clear his Spurs career would never come near the heights the giddy summer of 2013 had promised.

The same, however, can’t be said of another figure whose inevitable Spurs departure will be met with similar celebration. Emmanuel Adebayor regularly gave Tottenham fans glimpses of the player he could be. A combination of a heart-wrenchingly tough personal life and a subsequent lack of real interest in his football mean that we’ll remember Ade as ‘frustrating’ rather than ‘incredibly gifted’. Memories of games where he earned Tottenham points almost single handedly will live far less long in the memory than games where he simply seemed uninterested.

The problems start to arise, though, when you sell and don’t bring in replacements

These are both players who Spurs are right to look to move on. Players whose usefulness is gone and on whom we should look to upgrade. If Pochettino doesn’t think Capoue fits into his side then it’s fine to try and sell him. The same goes for Paulinho, Adebayor, Stambouli, Chiriches, Kaboul, Holtby, Lennon and Soldado. Move them on if they serve no purpose. The problems start to arise, though, when you sell all of them and don’t bring in replacements.

Daniel Levy has received praise for the fees he’s been able to negotiate for some of these flops – again, it says so much about Paulinho that making an £8m loss on him in two years is seen as a good piece of business – and the relief at seeing the back of certain players has generated something of a positive feeling about this window.

While the inward business that has been done has been very good – Alderweireld, Trippier, Alli and Wimmer are all sensible signings that will respectively improve our defence, provide competition for a complacent Kyle Walker, and grow into the team as youth players – it just isn’t enough for all the outgoings.

You’ve probably heard of this squad-cleansing referred to as “clearing out the deadwood,” so let me take that analogy a step further. If you pull up a load of rotten planks from a wooden bridge then walk away you haven’t improved the bridge, you’ve made it worse. Where once was damp wood you’d have to tread on carefully, now is a gap. And to make matters worse the year long bridge crossing season starts in just a couple of days. Or something.

In making these player sales Daniel Levy has done half a job, and has now left it too late to do the second half. He’s jumped at a great offer to sell his car then realised he has no way of getting home. See, Soldado might struggle to locate a barn door with a map, Stambouli might be slower than Neville Southall on curry night and Paulinho might have a shooting technique that makes you wince, but at least they are capable bodies.

I am more in favour of giving the youth a chance than anyone but we should certainly not be reliant on teenagers playing 30 games a season

To compete on four fronts in the coming season Spurs require a capable squad to rotate with the first eleven. Christian Eriksen’s exhausted performances from March onwards stand as a testament to the toll that playing a full season with no rest takes on a player. That squad that wasn’t really enough to support certain key players is now even thinner. Harry Kane played 51 games last year and being called on to play even more puts him in danger of burning out. The difficulty comes in finding a player prepared to play back up knowing – given Kane’s age – they’re not being primed into the first team.

The departing Paulinho, Stambouli and Capoue notched 73 appearances between them and have so far been replaced by Dele Alli and the returning Tom Carroll. I am more in favour of giving the youth a chance than anyone but we should certainly not be reliant on teenagers playing 30 games a season – particularly ones with minimal first team experience.

It’s all well and good applauding Levy for commanding respectable fees for these players, but that only means something if the money is then spent on finding their replacements. Give me the choice between having £9m in a bank account or the option of playing Paulinho in Europa League games and I’ll pick the latter every time.

The good news as far as rebuilding the squad goes is that there’s still nearly a month left in the window to get it into the state it needs to be in. The same can’t be said for improving the first team.

Tottenham open the season with one of the year’s toughest fixtures at Old Trafford and have failed to improve on the defensively lacklustre midfield combination of Nabil Bentaleb and Ryan Mason – a partnership so badly overrun in the 3-0 defeat in this fixture last year that Mousa Dembele had to come on for Andros Townsend after half an hour. Pochettino doesn’t even have the option of trying a more defensive minded midfield featuring Capoue or Stambouli.

My problem is not that either of Mason or Bentaleb aren’t good enough but that put together they lack the defensive nous and steel that are critical in the toughest fixtures. This is a problem that has been very obvious for a long time; this midfield partnership was used for the majority of the latter half of last season and regularly left the defence exposed. It played a huge part in Tottenham’s abysmal defensive record, yet Spurs have not acted in the months they’ve had to find a suitable new signing.

When Tottenham finished a single point behind Arsenal in that infamous 2012 campaign I thought back to our opening two fixtures – in which we were soundly beaten by both of the Manchester clubs

Look at Arsenal pre and post the frankly unremarkable Francis Coquelin. Look at how untested the 34 year old John Terry was last season playing behind Nemanja Matic. Look at how exemplary Southampton have been defensively with Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama guarding the back four. The first step to improving a defensive record worse than Hull’s is to sign a player capable of breaking up opposing attacks yet Spurs enter this new season without a single recognised defensive midfielder.

And while there is still time in the window, it’s disappointing to see the club playing catch-up again. When Tottenham finished a single point behind Arsenal in that infamous 2012 campaign I thought back to our opening two fixtures – in which we were soundly beaten by both of the Manchester clubs. That Tottenham squad was crying out for a holding midfielder and a new striker ahead of the season opener at Old Trafford. Who knows how those games might’ve gone if Scott Parker and Emmanuel Adebayor had been signed before the final week of August.