New season, new players, but it felt like a continuation of the 2025/26 campaign for Tottenham on Saturday.
Spurs made the short trip across London to take on Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium and returned home with their tail between their legs, despite having spent £237million in the summer transfer window so far, humbled 3-0 by the excellent Bees.
Roberto De Zerbi cut a forlorn figure, often seen by the Sky Sports cameras just sitting in the dugout, looking bereft of ideas and/or an explanation for the dire performance from his players. The Italian is normally an animated man on the sidelines, gesticulating to his players and getting his philosophy across.
De Zerbi has work to do on the training ground with his Spurs players
Saturday in west London was a very different vibe. It is only one match, and things will surely get better for Spurs, otherwise they will find themselves in another relegation battle this season, but De Zerbi's words after the game will have sent shivers down the spines of the Tottenham supporters.
Almost the first words that came out of his mouth in the press conference after the match were extremely worrying.
I think we are not a team yet.
That is an extremely worrying thing for a supporter to hear after the head coach has had a full pre-season to work with his players. But there are some mitigating circumstances.
As he explained later: "For sure, we are not in the right point in physical condition for a lot of reasons. For the players, they came late after the World Cup, because in Australia we couldn't work in the right way for the trip, don't take risks for a lot of things, but are not excuses.
"They are the normal situation when you are building a new project, a new process. I don't want time, but we have to pass through these problems."
Tottenham have already spent big in the summer transfer window and intend to splash more cash on Savinho and Omar Marmoush from Manchester City in the coming days.
There has been a lot of upheaval, and he is right that certain players have not been able to work with him in pre-season to truly understand his ways for this season.
De Zerbi could welcome back Porro, van de Ven and Kudus to his matchday squad for the next game against Newcastle United next Saturday - their first home game of the new season.
But having got a lot of the transfer business done early in the window, the excuse of players not being ready and up to speed does not really pass water.
Van de Ven may have returned from the World Cup and picked up an injury, hence not seeing him during pre-season, and Porro may have returned late due to Spain's exploits in winning the World Cup, but Arsenal had Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Eberechi Eze and Martin Zubimendi in their squad for the win over Coventry on Friday night and all four played a part in the match having gone all the way to the last weekend of the World Cup in America.
While that one line that De Zerbi said may frighten the Tottenham supporters, the last word of it is a caution to the rest of the Premier League. Yet. Spurs are not done in the transfer market and when they get it right on the pitch, De Zerbi firmly believes he has the players to deliver success.