No player epitomises this Tottenham team better than Serge Aurier The Ivorian played a part in three goals at either end of the pitch against Wolves, lurching between fantastic and the fantastically awful

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM — There’s a handy way of telling where Serge Aurier is on the pitch without having to keep an eye on the game: Just listen to the crowd. If Tottenham supporters are groaning, or emit a noise of breath-held angst, Aurier is defending in his own half. If they cheer and applaud, he’s in the opponents’.

There is the odd exception, of course. Occasionally Aurier will earn a frustrated groan when pushing forward, playing a 10-yard pass to the feet of an opponent. Even less often he will be cheered for his defensive work, usually when he thumps a clearance into the stands rather than insisting on over-playing.

If there is a player more prone to lurching between the fantastic and the fantastically awful in the Premier League, Aurier might consider it his mission to usurp them. During the first half against Wolves on Sunday, the Ivorian played a part in all three goals. The overlapping run to create the opener, the inability to prevent the cross for the equaliser. The majestic curled finish, pre-empted by chopping the ball onto his left foot and foxing Ruben Vinagre.

And then the game’s defining moment: Diogo Jota escaping down the Wolves left, and Aurier unable to block his path before Jota assisted Raul Jimenez’s winner. During the five seconds in which Jota was within 10 yards of Aurier, Tottenham’s right wing-back never once ran forwards. He started the episode by backing off and ended it by jogging after a player who had ghosted past him. On the touchline, Jose Mourinho stared at the turf and slowly shook his head. It was a lamentable piece of non-defending.

This sort of player doesn’t jump out as a typical Mourinho type. The Mourinho stereotype is that he prioritises the system over the individual, and consistency over fluctuation; eight out of 10 every week rather than a smattering of 10 and sixes. Aurier can manage 10 and six in the same minute. For a manager who is so determined to control the controllables, that presents a problem.

The obvious answer is that Aurier is a make-do option in a make-do team. Tottenham’s starting XI on Sunday contained only two players who started against Liverpool in the Champions League final nine months ago to the day. Harry Kane, Jan Vertonghen, Hugo Lloris, Son Heung-min and Toby Alderweireld, five of the pillars of Maurico Pochettino’s Tottenham, were all absent from a Tottenham team for the first time in the league since August 2012. Pochettino urged for change to take Tottenham forward. By hook or by crook, change has come.

But Aurier isn’t just playing in this team; he’s defining it. It’s hard to know what to make of Tottenham under Mourinho, not least because they have been entirely different to what most of us expected. The arrival of everyone’s favourite Machiavellian pragmatist is supposed to provoke a surge in defensive solidity and a siege mentality, particularly at home. Mourinho’s Tottenham are scoring and conceding more goals than Pochettino’s. Their defensive fragility is extraordinary, given our expectations.

Mourinho would have us believe that this was all inevitable given the loss of Son and Kane. Last week he used a post-match press conference to wish for the end of the season and a chance to have a full preseason with a fully-fit squad. If that was intended to motivate his players through the next three months, it’s a left-field strategy that doesn’t seem to have worked.

That deliberate miserabilism doesn’t quite stack up. Kane and Son are absent, but Tottenham should be better than this. Injuries do not fully explain the continually changing formation, the inability to thwart opponents that play either on the counter or on the front foot or the failure to maximise their spells of effective play. Spurs’ first half against Wolves was convincing; the second half was abject.

In October 2017, Pep Guardiola was criticised by Pochettino for his description of Tottenham as the “Harry Kane team”.

By March 2020, Tottenham are the Serge Aurier team. Like him, they lurch between incompetence and cohesion several times over the course of a single match. Like him, they undermine their promising characteristics with the glaring flaws. Like him, they ultimately leave you wanting an awful lot more.

Three months into Mourinho’s tenure, and the size of his task is becoming increasingly apparent. No problem has really been solved, no inherent doubt about his management emphatically retorted.

Two steps forward, two more back.