Momentum is the most ephemeral of the footballing concepts. Some people will tell you it’s everything, others will tell you it’s nothing. A team can come in bang in form and blow the other team away, but we’ve equally seen plenty of times when the pre-match overwhelming favourite lays an egg and gets trounced by the team coming in on a wave of negativity. Tottenham this season are the ultimate exponent of Schroedinger’s momentum – a team for whom momentum one way or another should be significant, but who keep defying the narrative going into a game.

Let’s start with the last game of the preseason (albeit one that Uefa will vehemently attempt to convince everyone is the curtain raiser for the season rather than the curtain closer of the offseason). Spurs had come into the super cup off the back of a generally positive set of friendlies, that were then brought crashing down into ‘Spursy’ territory by a crushing 4-0 defeat to Bayern Munich. As a team taking their place at the top table of European football following a not insignificant hiatus, the friendly against the Bavarians carried more weight than most as a litmus test of their European credentials. Fast forward 90 minutes and Tottenham had been embarrassed, and been punished by mostly second-string players at that. If you canvassed a significant portion of the Tottenham fanbase pre-Super Cup, you’d have heard a lot of versions of ‘we just hope we don’t embarrass ourselves.

Very much in the spirit of this article, Spurs fans were left with an ultra-confusing set of conflicting emotions at full time. On the one hand, Tottenham had dominated the European champions for the best part of 85 minutes, and did so in a fashion more akin to the professional displays of pragmatic Angeball that lead to the Europa League trophy being hoisted than it did the chaotic entertainment of the league displays that led to the worst domestic showing in history. At the same time, they had thrown away a seemingly dominant 2-0 position and then gone on to lose on penalties. Spursy…

So going into the season opener, Spurs were facing a quandary as to which of the many threads of fate would be tugged on. Would Spurs build on the impressive display against PSG, would Spurs suffer a hangover understandable given so many players’ emotional reaction post-penalties in the Super Cup, would Spurs make the most of a home opener against relegation-tipped opposition, or would a former midfield general and a team of relative unknowns embarrass Tottenham once more.

By the time the full time whistle went on opening day, Tottenham were riding a wave of optimism. The ultimate confidence player in the squad – Richarlison – had scored a contender for goal of the season, Spurs had kept a clean sheet, and their debutant Kudus looked every part the Ricky Villa throwback his YouTube montages promise. Not only that, but rumours were swirling that Eberechi Eze could be announced as a Tottenham player in time for Super Sunday coverage of the coup he would be.

If you’re attempting to keep up with the seismograph readout that Tottenham’s momentum swings are covering, then get ready for the week that followed, with Eze’s transfer seemingly being in the balance, then a done deal, then dramatically hijacked by Arsenal. All of the excitement of that opening weekend seemed to dissipate in the time it took for Fabrizio Romano to tweet.

A game against Man City was an odd one to face in this moment – on the one hand, Spurs seem to have an incredible ability to beat City regardless of what their form/squad or anything else looks like. So what would win out – would the negative atmosphere, the anti-Levy chants and the new look Man City team lead to the most unexpected result – a City victory, or would Spurs belie the leadup to the game and reinvigorate their season (before it feels like anything should need reinvigorating.

So now, like a Christopher Nolan film you pretend to understand, we finally reach the present day and the current hour. Spurs had arguably one of their most impressive performances in years, with a degree of professionalism rarely seen, and a performance by Joao Palinha that had some already crowning him the signing of the season…Eberechi who?

Now at this point I do need to fall back to a more serious point and remove my tongue from my cheek for a moment. The less emotional take on the concept of momentum is one that requires a zoom out from the micro to the macro – it’s not about the febrile reaction to the last hour, the last match or the last signing (successful or missed out on) – it’s about the grander swings of momentum and the ability for a club to capitalise on a moment or miss out on it. Sitting beneath the narratives surrounding the Eze debacle was a serious one – the reiteration that while Levy’s business approach may have built a business with no worries about PSR and a bright future, it’s also lead to countless missed opportunities. Eze feels like the latest example of Tottenham failing to capitalise on MACRO momentum – not the momentary exhilaration of a great win, but the winning of a trophy after a far-too-long wait. Or in the case of the previous example, the failure to kick on from making the biggest game in European football. Just like when Pochettino was not backed to the necessary degree after the loss to Liverpool, a failure to bring in at least one more marquee signing could see Tottenham lose the upswing of positivity that can ratchet up a team to the next tier.

It may take the ultimate regret for Spurs to fully understand what they should have done. If their North London rivals finally get over their own particular hump, then both Red and White sides could look back on the Eze signing as an example of ‘what could have been. Arsenal fans will shiver at an alternative reality where they never plucked the Greenwich boy for the ultimate homecoming, and Spurs fans would be left to wonder at what could have been had they swung for the fences themselves and swung momentum accordingly.