First, the caveats. It was only against Reims, who had the second worst defensive record in the French top flight even before Tuesday, and whose goalkeeper Johny Placide was hampered by an injury that forced him off at half-time. And Steve Mandanda did have to make a couple of decent saves in the second half after the intensity of the game had dropped. So Marseille fans must temper their excitement a little. But only a little.

Tuesday’s 5-0 victory at the Stade Auguste Delaune was stirring stuff, the sort of football that leaves a warm glow in the pit of the stomach. For an hour Marseille were relentless, remorseless, sweeping forwards in grey wave after grey wave, enveloping Reims like a malevolent fog. The statistics show Marseille had 60% of the ball but it felt like far more than that: every time a Reims player received a pass they were under pressure, while when Marseille had it they were always looking to advance. There was no sterile possession, no knocking it square across the pitch, taking the sting out of the game: this was a festival of verticality, 5-0 going on 10-0.

For much of it, their Argentinian coach Marcelo Bielsa sat in the middle of his technical area on the cool box used for the drinks bottles. Gone was the remorseless pacing (always 13, always 13) of his Athletic Bilbao days, and gone were the glasses on a string; instead he resembled a lone obsessive perched by a remote green at a minor golf tournament, occasionally extending an arm in exasperation at an ill-thought-out bump-and-run.

André-Pierre Gignac had seen a penalty saved even before he headed Marseille in front after eight minutes from a cross from the overlapping full-back Benjamin Mendy. His second came from the other flank, Florian Thauvin playing a one-two wide on the right and cutting into the box. Placide blocked his shot but Gignac headed in the rebound. Bielsa watches videos of his opponents obsessively looking for patterns and shapes in their play – he claims he can watch two games simultaneously because he is looking for outlines not detail; he had, it’s fairly safe to assume, identified that Reims defend narrow and instructed his side to look to isolate the full-back and then overlap.

Dede Ayew added the third and fourth – the latter with a rabona after the substitute goalkeeper, Kossi Agassa, had pushed out a shot-cum-cross from Thauvin – and Giannelli Imbula capped a superb performance with the fifth, a dipping shot from 25 yards. It got to a point, though, at which the goals had almost become irrelevant. The expression of mastery was less in how often Marseille put the ball in the net than in the way, even at 5-0, that they refused Reims an inch. Even in injury time they were pressing hard and high, committing seven or eight men into the Reims half.

Marseille stand three points clear at the top of Ligue 1 after five straight victories, although either St Etienne or Bordeaux would go level with them if they win their meeting on Thursday evening. The game away to Paris Saint-Germain on 9 November already looks like being a key to the season. But thrilling as Marseille have been, there are doubts. First, those five wins in a row have been against Guingamp, Nice, Evian, Rennes and Reims, all of whom are in the bottom half of the table. St Etienne at home on Sunday represents a real test.

And second, perhaps more importantly, this so far has followed the classic Bielsa template. He arrives and it takes a little while for his ideas to be accepted. Marseille began the season with a draw against Bastia – having been 3-1 up – and a defeat to Montpellier, just as Bilbao had struggled in their first month under him. Then, abruptly, something clicks. Players speak of becoming aware of another dimension, of somehow grasping the inner workings of football. The football becomes mesmerising: it ended up meaning very little, but Bilbao’s victory over Manchester United in the Europa League remains one of the most thrilling performances of recent years.

But then, a few months in, the trip comes to an end. Players find themselves mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. The Bielsa quirks that seemed charming when things were going well become infuriating. The board begins to find his constant quibbles intolerable. Already Bielsa has denounced the Marseille directors over their summer transfer policy. Magnificently and characteristically, at the press conference after his complaint, he pedantically announced that he had thought about what he had said, and decided that – on reflection – he had been right in every respect. Even this week he has started to suggest that he may not see out his two-year contract. There will come a tipping point – at Bilbao it was frustration at how long rebuilding work on the training ground was taking – after which the path to the exit is clearly marked.

History suggests Bielsa sides have about six months at their peak before fatigue sets in. His complaints over the depth of his squad suggest he has come to fear that process, although a lack of European competition should relieve the pressure a little. So perhaps Marseille fans should simply enjoy what they have as long as it lasts. There also remains the glorious possibility that Bielsa, the great romantic, the idealist who has not won a domestic trophy since 1998, might at last have his consecration. And if he should do it in the face of PSG, the greatest icons of the modern world of super clubs run by sovereign wealth funds and oligarchs, how much the sweeter.