Ledley King believes Tottenham's owners, the Lewis family, want to 'do big things with the club' and that something different is taking place behind the scenes.
Spurs suffered an almighty scare last season as they escaped relegation on the final day of the campaign by just two points. That appears to have jump-started the club with £237million spent on three players so far for Roberto De Zerbi, including £100million Sandro Tonali, and the wage structure overhauled to ensure they can compete for the likes of Andy Robertson and Marcos Senesi on free transfers.
The backing has come from the Lewis family, who run Tottenham owners ENIC. For years, billionaire Joe Lewis was a distant figure behind the scenes who rarely got involved or attended matches. However, his involvement ceased years ago and his daughter Vivienne and her son-in-law Nick Beucher have taken a far bigger interest in the club in the past 18 months, including launching an independent internal review last year that ultimately led to the departure of long-serving chairman Daniel Levy.
Beucher has held various meetings with Tottenham's CEO Vinai Venkatesham this year to ensure he gets what he needs while Vivienne has been a constant presence at matches and is currently on the club's pre-season tour to Australia.
In their first two decades at Spurs, after taking charge in 2000, ENIC put very little into the club, looking for it to be self-sustaining, much to the frustration of the fans. However, that stance has dramatically shifted in recent years with the Lewis family injecting £100million into Tottenham last month to make it £332.5million pumped in since 2022.
King sees Vivienne Lewis and Beucher at the stadium at games and his conversations with them have made it clear that something different is in the air.
"I've felt their intent in making the football club great. Just in passing, it's really great to have brief conversations. I can feel that they really want to do big things with the football club, they've said they do and I really do believe they mean it," he told football.london.
"We all feel like we're all going in the same direction, which is fantastic. That's not to say that wasn't the case before but it just feels like there's something different and they really do want to make a big impact moving forward, which is great."
He added: "When you have owners that are down-to-earth, it makes it a little bit more enjoyable for everyone in doing their best work and pulling in the right direction for the club."
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One of Tottenham's summer signings showed a mark of respect to King when Robertson chose not to take his usual number 26 after years of wearing it at Liverpool. The number has not been worn at the club since the former Spurs captain hung up his boots in 2012 and Robertson chose to wear the number three instead, citing the centre-back's status in N17.
"Andy's a great guy. I was well aware of him wearing 26, because it's a number that not too many players wear," said King. "For him to decide not to wear the shirt was a testament to his character really, a great sign of respect.
"I know he's a legend at Liverpool in that same shirt so it was a really nice touch for me. We spoke at the airport before we came out on the tour, we shared a few words about it. It was nice."
As a former centre-back, King certainly appreciates the arrivals of Senesi and Jan Paul van Hecke, who reunited with his former Brighton boss De Zerbi in a £52million deal. Tottenham currently have Micky van de Ven, Kevin Danso and Cristian Romero at the back, although the latter has been linked with the exit door with Inter Milan among those attempting to sign him this summer.
"It's great [to have so many options]. Iron sharpens iron. I think that whatever combination of centre-halves we go with, they're going to be very strong," said King. "It'll be up to the manager now to really decide who he feels are the best pairing. Also, as we've seen, there are so many injuries during the season.
"You need to be very confident in whoever is coming in to the team and making sure that they keep the same standards. Everyone will push everyone to be the best versions of themselves. That's how you get success in football clubs.
"At the moment, it seems like we're building from the ground up, in terms of the foundations. It's really exciting. I believe that we still have more to do, which is great to hear.
"It's about bringing in the right people, not just for numbers' sake, but bringing in the right people with the right mentality. It's a really exciting place to be."
As well as those coming into the club there are also some exciting youngsters trying to break into De Zerbi's thinking, including 17-year-old attacking talent Luca Williams-Barnett. The youngster made his senior debut last season in the Carabao Cup and after returning from an injury that cut his last season short he has dazzled in Spurs' opening two friendlies against MK Dons and Auckland.
As someone who came through the academy and made his debut as a youngster, King knows what it takes to make the huge leap to the first team.
"Luca's a talent. He's certainly a talent. I'm always careful not to put too much pressure on these young players. There's a lot of hard work ahead for him, but there's no doubt that he's someone with great ability," he said.
"It will be down to him to work on that. He's seen players like Harry Kane before him come through the academy and through sheer hard work and determination, put himself in a position where he was able to kick on and have the wonderful career he did, as well as having, of course, his talent.
"But the work and the belief that he had really did make a huge difference. He's got no better person to look at than Harry Kane, but yes, there's no doubt we're excited by his talent and the next part will be up to him."
There are also a couple of exciting young centre-backs coming through the academy right now in 18-year-old Malachi Hardy, who caught De Zerbi's eye against Auckland, and the currently injured 17-year-old Jun'ai Byfield, who impressed with a couple of senior appearances last season amid Spurs' injury crisis.
"They're talented, two really talented centre-backs. The great thing for them is that they have a lot of great centre-backs to work with and look at on a daily basis to see what levels they need to get to," said the former Tottenham skipper.
"I think that's always important. When I was a young centre-back, you're always looking ahead into what position you eventually want to get to and you're looking at their strengths and weaknesses.
"So they get a chance to do that and see the defenders at the real top level of the game and get an understanding of where they need to eventually try to get to. But there's no doubt they have great talent and great potential. Inside the club, we're obviously really excited about them."
There would be few better people to work with such young defenders than King himself. The 45-year-old briefly began studying towards his coaching badges years ago and got work experience with Jose Mourinho's staff during the Portuguese's time at Spurs but since King became a club ambassador he has not since returned to his coaching studies.
There were rumours earlier this year as Tottenham's season fell apart, before De Zerbi's rescue mission, that King might have been drafted in to help a Spurs' caretaker boss and he appeared to confirm that was a possibility when reflecting on his paused coaching studies.
"It's always in the back of my head, niggling. Sometimes maybe you find yourself in a position that you didn't expect to be in. That potentially could have happened at the end of last season at some point," he said. "Then we could be talking about something totally different, we could be sitting here or even sitting elsewhere, going down my coaching badge route and really trying to make a career of it. At the moment, I still really enjoy my work as an ambassador."
But what of the likes of Hardy and Byfield and the kick it would give such youngsters to work with one of the Premier League's best central defenders?
"I do have that feeling. I don't think it ever goes away. I still have a lot of knowledge of the game, I suppose a lot to give," admitted King. "But at the same time, I'm always here. I'm always here for people to talk to. If they want my advice or I want to sit down with them, I'm always here. That's the other side of things.
"They've still got me. I might not be on the training pitch, but I can always give my time up to speak, sit down and watch video clips of them. I'm around."