Ange Postecoglou has Tottenham advantage not seen since Mauricio Pochettino

If Newcastle United have just experienced a difficult second season after Champions League qualification, and Aston Villa face the challenge of succeeding where they failed, then Tottenham Hotspur will be hoping that actually having two full pre-seasons under the same manager for a change might actually be beneficial.

Tottenham have not enjoyed that luxury since Mauricio Pochettino’s departure: Jose Mourinho replaced him three months into the 2019/20 season, had one full season in the job, and then was replaced by Nuno Espirito Santo. He, too, was dismissed in November, giving Antonio Conte only the summer of 2022 before going out under a cloud.

The initial signs under Postecoglou were extremely positive, with Spurs taking 26 of their first possible 30 Premier League points, and doing so in some style.

But then Pochettino put the curse on his former club, with his Chelsea side claiming a 4-1 win in November that made clear that for all their attacking ability, Spurs had a glass jaw. And not even normal glass, but the special sugar glass they use for Hollywood stunts and wrestling matches.

Spurs took just 40 points from their remaining 28 games, two fewer than Bournemouth and just two more than Everton.

That has, understandably, taken some of that initial gale out of Postecoglou’s sails, and he will have reached the end of last season grateful for the opportunity to get back onto the training pitch – and into the transfer market – to start putting right some of the issues that had been so ruthlessly exposed last season.

There is, perhaps, a touch of 2013/14 and 2014/15 rolled into one about Tottenham, with Harry Kane’s sale and the arrival of numerous new signings having a similarly wonky effect on their form as they faced after selling Gareth Bale to Real Madrid in 2013. Back then, Spurs messed about with Andre Villas-Boas and Tim Sherwood before appointing Pochettino in summer 2014; this time, there has been no repeat.

Poch, too, needed those two full summers to really get Spurs going; he, too, finished fifth in his first season in charge, with some embarrassing and heavy defeats along the way. But after that second pre-season, they achieved three straight top-three finishes – the best they had done in 26 years, and unmatched since.

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Any manager will tell you that the kind of structural issues Spurs faced last season can be next to impossible even for the best coaches to address during a season. Even without continental football or any kind of cup run, there simply isn’t enough time on the grass and in the video room to make sure those defensive transitions that follow broken-down attacks are on point – vital for any side, but especially for those playing his brand of high-octane attacking football.

That has been much more Tottenham’s issue than the often-cited difficulty in going on without their top scorer of the previous nine seasons.

Their signing of the dynamic and versatile Archie Gray to play either as a midfielder, full-back or a hybrid of the two is designed to help deal with that – albeit with the usual question marks around his ability to step up from the Championship.

More signings will be needed, with centre-back and, yes, OK, centre-forward looking like particular areas for improvement. But beyond that, the squad does not feel like it needs major surgery. If anything, theirs is a squad that could do with some pruning.

Get those right, and the gentle touch of drills, shape work and the integration of better-responsive habits off the ball could do the rest. We’re about to find out if Postecoglou really is the exciting genius he first appeared, or whether their later-season travails represent his true form.