The 2016-2017 Premier League campaign that everyone has been salivating for kicked off this last Saturday with some incredibly exciting games. Last year’s champions were soundly beaten by a newly promoted team with only 13 professional players on their team sheet, Pep Guardiola had a bit of a nervy start, Shaquiri scored an absolute blinder, and Arsenal-Liverpool played what will surely become one of the classic games this season.

There were some flat performances however – Tottenham struggled to make a case for themselves against Everton at Goodison Park.

Prior to the game, Everton’s newly appointed manager, Ronald Koeman, stated that his players were nowhere near maximum fitness. The Toffees’ star player Romelu Lukaku was missing from the team sheet as well, in what was shaping up to be an almost foregone conclusion. Everton’s tired players would surely be steamrolled by an (almost) full-strength Spurs side.

And they surely would have, had Tottenham played anywhere near the quality they showed last season. But they didn’t.

In many ways, it was a vintage Tottenham performance – lethargic. Pochettino has fought and succeeded in revolutionizing the mentality of the club, but like an old habit that’s hard to kick, sluggish performances such as the one we saw Saturday pop up every now and again.

Spurs were simply caught sleeping until the 65th minute of the match. There were very few signs of Pochettino’s trademark high-intensity press, which made the whole system ineffective – if only one player applies pressure properly, the player in possession will always have a safe pass. Everton, on the other hand, were much hungrier for the ball and showcased a brutal tenacity that no Tottenham player could cope with.

Pochettino chose to deploy Victor Wanyama alongside Eric Dier as the preferred starting midfielder, Mousa Dembele, was still serving a suspension. Although both are somewhat more defensive-minded players, both Dier and Wanyama have exhibited their passing range before – the former in his many great performances for Spurs last season, the latter in Southampton (admittedly, when he was motivated enough.) Neither would be able to replicate Dembele’s penetrating dribbles, but they weren’t expected to either–Eriksen, Lamela, and Dele were instructed to drop deeper than usual in order to create passing lanes for the defensive midfielders; both of which had their hands full the entire match.

Both Dier and Wanyama would have had a much easier time had Dele, Eriksen, and Harry Kane been effective in any way, shape, or form.

All three – star- attacking players were mind-numbingly inconsequential to anything that occurred on the pitch. Dele Alli put in what was probably his worst performance in a Spurs shirt.

He showed none of the confidence that seemed to be oozing out of him last season. Dele was slow to react to loose balls and even slower to make a pass. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember him making a single one-touch pass that was in any way creative or daring. He played like the player everyone expected him to be at the beginning of last season – a scared teenager who would take time to adapt to the grueling Premier League. Maybe he feels he has expectations to fulfill now after winning the Young Player of the Year award last season, or maybe he feels like he has to make up for Spurs’ ‘collapse’ last season, or England’s failure in the Euros. No matter what it is, Pochettino has to get him sorted – he has a key part to play in Tottenham’s push for the top 4.

Harry Kane is another player that may be feeling off after the end of last season and the Euros as well. Tottenham’s star striker was completely marked out of the game. Everton’s defensive setup was impeccable, something that Four Four Two wrote about here. As good of a game as the Toffees’ three-man backline had, there’s no denying that Kane was completely off his game. He’s been the focus of the opposition’s defense countless times, and yet he usually finds some way to influence the game in one way or another. On Saturday, Kane’s biggest contribution was being moved back to accommodate Tottenham’s new boy, Vincent Janssen.

The Dutch striker impressed with both his link-up play and off-the-ball movement. Surprisingly enough, he showed more hunger in winning 50/50s and loose balls than both Dele and Kane combined. Two players that were so pivotal to our campaign last season went completely missing, and Janssen took the opportunity to prove himself. He still has to work on his ball control and constant fouling (even in a team with Lamela in it), but it looks like we have brought in a proper secondary striker that may push for a starting spot. With that being said, it’s a bit hard to tell whether Tottenham really improved in quality throughout the game or Everton merely dropped off with tired legs. Which is the most worrying part of Tottenham’s performance.

All of the top teams have brought in new managers, and completely given a face-lift to their teams. Most, if not all pundits and fans, have written off Tottenham as a team that will simply not be able to keep up with the likes of Mourinho, Guardiola, or Conte. But the Tottenham faithful have clung on to the idea that new players and manager take time to settle into the team – just as we saw in Spurs’ ’13-’14 season, buying a ton of new players doesn’t always lead to success. There is something to be said for consistency across seasons. Since Spurs players played excellently for the majority of last season, it was thought that we could potentially hit the ground running while other teams took time to gel.

In fact, the opposite happened. Manchester United, City, and even Liverpool hit the ground running while Tottenham faltered. Perhaps even more ironically, Everton – with a new manager, missing their star man, and filling a gap in defense with a youth defender – played like a team that’s been practicing together for ages. Spurs were on the opposite spectrum, similar to a pick up game with random teammates that you’ve never played with before.

This is just the first game of the season, and I don’t want to fulfill the Spurs fan stereotype of just spouting doom-and-gloom, but Pochettino clearly has work to do in getting a lot of our players’ heads right. If we keep having performances such as the one we saw against Everton, with the way other top 6 clubs are playing, it will be an uphill battle the rest of the season.