Pragmatic player trading. It was a wonderful catch-all phrase, conceived and delivered by Daniel Levy, the Tottenham Hotspur chairman, on 2 September – the day after the transfer window closed – but one that concealed a vast expanse of nuance.

PPT is the policy upon which Levy has built his tenure, which holds the key to the club’s immediate future and which, it can be said with certainty, has polarised the opinions of the fan base and other figures within the game.

Take Sir Alex Ferguson, for example, who traded on a few occasions with Levy during his time at Manchester United – most infamously, the £30.75m deal that took Dimitar Berbatov from White Hart Lane to Old Trafford in 2008. “That whole experience was more painful than my hip replacement,” Ferguson said.

Levy is hardly noted for his public pronouncements but he was forced to address and defend PPT after the summer window, with an element of his club’s support in mutinous mood, following the Saido Berahino saga and the failure to sign an out-and-out striker to support Harry Kane. “Our pragmatic player trading has been important in the way we have run the business of the club and in getting us to the position where we have now been able to start work on a new stadium – the one thing that has the ability to take this club to the next level of competitiveness,” Levy said, in a statement.

It was the first time that Levy had made the connection between the recent low net spends on transfer fees [£5.7m in this past window] and the funding required for the new stadium – it will cost £400m-£450m – and it seemed to confirm what many fans have long suspected: there will be little or no speculating to accumulate until the stadium is finished. The club intend it to be ready for the 2018-19 season.

It has, in turn, raised a series of questions that relate to the club’s ambition in the short term and the levels of expectation. With the Premier League leaders, Manchester City, due at White Hart Lane for Saturday’s early kick-off, the focus has sharpened.

There was a time when a Champions League finish was the be-all and end-all for Levy and the failure to deliver imperilled his manager. André Villas-Boas was sacked in December 2013 when it became clear that he was not the man to lead Tottenham into the top four, and Harry Redknapp was dismissed despite finishing fourth in 2012. Tottenham, of course, were denied Champions League qualification when Chelsea won the competition. Going further back, Martin Jol was fired in 2007 after he could not build on successive fifth-place finishes.

There does not seem to be the same gun-to-temple imperative for Mauricio Pochettino. The manager finished fifth in his first season at the club, without ever truly threatening fourth, and nobody can say with any conviction that his team will come in higher next May.

There was plenty to like about Tottenham’s performance in defeat at home to Arsenal in the Capital One Cup on Wednesday and Pochettino wants to see the same tempo against City. But they will begin as the underdogs for good reason, and not only because City – and the striker Sergio Agüero – have had the upper hand against them of late.

The gap to City and the rest of the established top four seems to have widened and a consequence of Tottenham’s summer transfer business and the approach that Levy, through Pochettino, has implemented, which features a heavy accent on youth, is that realism is on the rise.

Pochettino’s team have proved that on their day at White Hart Lane they can topple the big guns; the wins over Chelsea and Arsenal last season were stand-out moments. Football tends to be more enjoyable when a young team succeed; half of the squad is aged 23 or under. But elite-level consistency over a 38-game season is another matter altogether.

In many respects Pochettino is Levy’s perfect manager for this period. He is flexible and he works with what he is given, without complaint. Only Kane up front? No problem. The wide attacker, Son Heung-min, who was signed from Bayer Leverkusen for £22m, can provide the back-up. No new defensive midfielder? No problem. Pochettino has converted the defender Eric Dier – and to eye-catching effect.

The profile of signing has changed during Pochettino’s three transfer windows, with young, ideally British, talent with potential resale value prioritised. The net spend on fees during his first two windows was zero. It has not been a problem to him.

Pochettino likes to work with hungry, young players, to promote from within, and there is a dynamism about his team when it clicks. Dele Alli, the 19-year-old midfielder who cost £5m from MK Dons, has been a revelation this season while Son, who is still only 23, has hit the ground running. Fast.

Through it all, Levy cuts the divisive figure. His critics wish that he could push the boat out a little more; to have a real crack at what seems like a glass ceiling above the club. But Levy can stare them down with his record. In the past six seasons, starting with the most recent, Spurs have finished fifth, sixth, fifth, fourth, fifth and fourth. It is their most sustained level of achievement since the 60s and, do not forget, the team play out of a ground that generates revenue from only 36,000 seats.

Levy does not forget. Until the new stadium move, pragmatism has to hold sway.