Unusual look at the top of the Premier League.

 Unusual look at the top of the Premier League.

It was business as usual at the top of the Premier League. The great and good are leading the way while the less fashionable are still leaving us ever so slightly shocked and surprised. Football loves the unpredictable, the whimsical, the oddities of life that are very much the rich tapestry of everything we hold dear in the game.Suddenly, and quite out of the blue, there come along a whole batch of teams in the top flight who race out of the blocks at the beginning of a new Premier League season and catch all of us unawares. 

This weekend Spurs, who last won the old First Division championship almost six decades ago, are back on the top of the world. It is indeed heartening to see the club who quite richly celebrated the game's purest attacking principles under manager Bill Nicholson, are top of the Premier League. For those of us who pin our colours to the vintage claret and blue of West Ham United, this does leave you ever so slightly lost for words and queasy in the stomach. 

Under Jose Mourinho, quite possibly one of the most miserable, ungrateful and narcissistic managers in the game, Spurs have travelled a long way towards the summit. At Manchester United, Mourinho almost lost not only the dressing room at Manchester United but also fell out of favour with the entire footballing community. His now almost notorious eyeballing confrontation with Paul Pogba is now football folklore and we may never know whether the two kissed and made up. 

And yet here we are over two months into the new Premier League season and Mourinho is re-capturing his golden Chelsea days when back to back Premier League titles were achieved with almost arrogant ease. But his tenure at United is now the only major concern to trouble the hierarchy at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Mourinho is still capable of blowing a gasket when things go haywire and Spurs have to be privately worried that if Mourinho does get all hot, bothered and antagonistic, the whole of North London will have to batten down the hatches, flee for shelter and avoid the verbal backlash. 

On Saturday evening Spurs announced their potential Premier League title credentials with an impressively confident dismissal of Manchester City, very much the template for all aspiring winners of the Premier League. When the final whistle went at Spurs both Pep Guardiola and Mourinho touched elbows, acknowledged each other's considerable managerial prowess and went their merry way. Both men are completely familiar with each other's attacking philosophy and it was hard to distinguish the merits of both men's teams because at times both looked a carbon copy of each other. 

When Spurs though get it right on the day their football is a sweetly flavoured mixture of honey and syrup, an irresistible side, full of quick, nimble, classical passing and high intensity. They break at a speed that is almost intimidating, they combine elegantly through the centre of the pitch and the lines and then allow the brilliant Harry Kane to finish with a beautiful coat of emulsion paint. Spurs, by their own admission, though are not the finished article but they do have the right fabrics and furnishings. 

On Sunday the likes of Son Heung Min, provided some of the more decorative touches to this lavish Tottenham feast, a player of bountiful skill on the ball and astonishing intelligence. Heung Min can also be relied on to score some of those spectacular goals that make him such a valuable asset to Spurs. With the likes of Giovanni Lo Celso and Tangy Ndombole adding to the silkiness and smoothness of their well oiled and versatile unit, Spurs are heading in the right kind of direction. Occasionally there are the erratic and madcap moments which lead you to believe otherwise and there can be a flakiness to some of Spurs football, the 3-3 draw at home West Ham earlier on the season being a perfect example of when Spurs simply imploded. 

But Jose Mourinho can look at the Premier League table with just a touch of haughty pride. Comparisons between the Double winning Spurs season from almost 60 years ago are of course ill judged and invidious and although Kane is not quite Jimmy Greaves, nor Lo Celso Alan Gilzean or Terry Dyson Spurs will be pleased that the modern version have found the right and compatible blend. 

At Liverpool the 3-0 thrashing of close Premier League contenders Leicester City had something of a carnival air about it. The 7-2 demolition suffered by Liverpool at Aston Villa just seems like some surreal art installation, full of weird and twisted shapes. It may have been a rush of the blood to the head or maybe the moon was in the wrong position but Jurgen Klopp must be hoping that the result was some ridiculous aberration that will never ever happen again.  

On Saturday evening the marvellously cohesive and artistic football that Liverpool have so often blown teams away with, materialised like a dream. Liverpool once again moved the ball around among themselves with an almost proprietorial air about them. The ball is cherished and protected, caressed and nurtured, the patterns symmetrical at all times, the football, an object of adoration and idolatry. When Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino, the newcomer Diogo Jota and Mo Salah take possession of the ball you're reminded of a luggage carousel at an airport. The ball is kept in perfect circulation, rotating from feet to feet in a way that would have brought a lump to the throat to Bill Shankly or Bob Paisley. 

And Chelsea under their former player and attacking midfielder Frank Lampard are also hot on the heels of the leaders and pacemakers. Mason Mount in particular has caught the eye, a player of composure and delicious creativity. Then there's Tammy Abraham, a striker with a devastating finishing touch, N'Golo Kante was once again prominent and central to all of Chelsea's positive attacking intent, a revelation who kept gliding and flitting around with clever probing and the most feathery touch on the ball. Chelsea's 2-1 win at Newcastle was a perfect example of a young team who looked years ahead of their time. 

And finally both Arsenal and Everton have enjoyed and endured in most of their opening matches of the season. Arsenal must have thought they were on to a good thing when they disdainfully swept aside Manchester United at Old Trafford but then came unstuck awkwardly at home to Arsenal with a 3-0 defeat at home to Aston Villa. Still, Arsenal do have in Mikel Arteta one of the shrewdest and most thoughtful bosses in the Premier League. Arsenal have that almost Midas touch on the ball, comfortably tapping the ball around among themselves before stylishly dismantling teams with punchy, lethal and penetrative football that invariably ends in the perfectly constructed goal.

Arsenal's 0-0 draw against a joyously carefree and cavalier Leeds United at Elland Road was so impossible to categorise that at times it was hard to know which team would either stick or twist. Leeds United, under Marcelo Bielsa remind you of drunken revellers after chucking out time at a pub. Now the pub itself at the moment is temporarily closed but you feel sure that Bielsa has just stolen the keys, opened up the bar and helped himself to any glass of alcohol he can lay his hands on.

 His players are both scoring and conceding goals as if they were going out of fashion. The 4-3 defeat at Liverpool on the season's opening weekend of the season and Leicester's 4-1 thumping of Leeds a couple of weeks ago were the kind of results that has put the promoted Leeds season into some kind of perspective. Their football may blow hot and cold but you suspect Don Revie would have found such behaviour intolerable. So it's Spurs leading the way at the end of November but the season has just entered its wintry period and that will certainly sort the men from the boys. Give us a smile Jose Mourinho.