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In theory, there are people who watch the Premier League because they like football.

In practice, there are people who watch the Premier League because they don't like football - nobody does, but it beats speaking to your loved ones - but they have been cursed by circumstance to support one of the constituent clubs, and so have no choice but to have their moods dragged sometimes up but mostly down by the adequacies but mostly inadequacies of eleven or so men who should be good at their jobs but mostly aren't. It's a metaphor for politics. You are welcome for this satirical joke.

This brings us neatly to Tottenham Hotspur.

Narrative junkies were delighted with the prospect, this weekend, of the latest manager to the slaughter Mauricio Pochettino facing off against not just one but two of the men who preceded him to Daniel Levy's bloody chopping block. In the Queens Park Rangers dugout, Harry Redknapp; in the

. What better pairing to introduce Pochettino to the facts of his inevitable doom?

After all, this is Tottenham. This is the place where managers go to find themselves driven slowly and quietly mad. The last man, Tim Sherwood, was so consumed by the place that he tore all the sleeves off his jackets, leaving him with nowhere to wear his heart, and a soul perpetually sustained by getting in and around the nebulous concept of banter. Before him, Andre Villas-Boas slowly disappeared from view, leaving just an empty beard with a growling voice to hem and haw and croak its way through the after-match interviews.

(Image: Action Images)

This is a dugout haunted by managerial failure.

Juande Ramos and his slow transformation into a miserable tree.

Christian Gross and his perfectly sensible, entirely reasonable decision to commute to work using public transport, which he ruined with a perfectly peculiar, entirely ridiculous decision to tell everybody about it while at the same time being suspiciously foreign.

Ossie Ardiles and his five-man front-line.

Even Redknapp himself, who was actually quite good at the job, ruined everything by deciding he wanted a better one and ending up with nothing, not even the Champions League. (They didn’t qualify, right?. You are welcome for this joke, Arsenal fans.)

But if it's going to go wrong, well, it's not going wrong yet. Two games in to the season, and Tottenham haven't done anything Tottenham yet.

, they weren't particularly great before Kyle Naughton's dismissal, were quite understandably concerned with damage limitation afterwards, and yet managed to steal a win right at the death.

Then, when QPR came to visit they took the chance, before their own fans, to stretch their legs and show a bit of style. Emmanuel Adebayor was vibrant, Nacer Chadli actually did things, and

. It's almost like one season isn't enough time to judge a young footballer who has changed country and culture, struggled with injury, and had to deal with being managed by two men who aren't long for the job, and one of the men being Tim Sherwood, who made Lamela carry around all those discarded sleeves in training.

(Image: Andrew Caballero-Reynolds)

All that said,

. A team defined by Rio Ferdinand, a figure whose increasing decrepitude has required a shift in formation, resulting in the odd sight of a team playing three at the back in terms of defenders, yet only two at the back in terms of functioning pairs of legs. Presumably the appointment of Hoddle was intended to graft some tactical nous onto Redknapp's mateyness; instead, the side are playing with worst aspects of both men, a tactically chaotic rabble who don't look like they're having any fun.

But let's focus on Spurs. Two games in, and already Pochettino's side have shown that they can both nick off with the points in the face of adversity, and shred weak opposition when the opportunity presents itself. Two good habits for football teams to get themselves into. And though some might be concerned that the optimism might be ruined by their next Premier League opponents Liverpool, a side that last season spent one hundred and eighty minutes alternatively laughing in and kicking in their face, even this represents an opportunity for Pochettino.

After all, it's not often that a manager gets to approach a game knowing that anything short of a five-goal shoeing will represent progress. Heady days. We're not saying that Spurs are going to win the league, but we are definitely saying that they're not going to win it in a slightly less disappointing manner than last time. And that is all that most of the Premier League can hope for.

Oh go on then. Spurs are definitely going to win the league.

Here are the best pics from Sunday's win over QPR: