Antonio Conte’s lid hovering in mid-air on a constant jet of steam

It sounds counter-intuitive on the face of it, but failing to sign all of your targets during the transfer window need not be a bad thing. Take Manchester City, for example, who are currently shoo-ins for the Premier League having already scored 55 goals, yet if they’d got what they wanted last summer, would now be lumbered up front with a slow, sour-faced, superannuated crosstown legend getting in the way of all the kids, and, even worse, five-goal spent force Harry Kane. Conversely, successfully getting your own way can end up backfiring. Yes, it’s Spurs and Harry Kane again, isn’t it.

That we’re specifically setting this up to make Tottenham fans feel a little less down today speaks volumes, but this is where everyone is at the minute, so let’s try to make the best of it. Spurs have spent the majority of the current window trying to land Adama Traoré from Wolves and Porto’s Luis Díaz, but it now looks as though the pair of wing wonders are off to Barcelona and Liverpool, respectively. This unfortunate state of affairs has plunged the fanbase into a deep funk, while sending Antonio Conte’s lid hovering in mid-air on a constant jet of steam, as if constantly daydreaming about what they’d have done with all that £125m cash-in bounty for Kane, and where they’d be right now, wasn’t distressing enough.

But if champions-elect City’s positive reaction to marketplace misery is anything to go by, this needn’t ruin Tottenham’s season. That’s why The Fiver confidently predicts a similarly staunch response from Spurs, maybe a fifth- or sixth- or seventh-place finish. Well, it’s all relative. After all, Son Heung-min is world-class, Lucas Moura is fun to watch, and Ryan Sessegnon has to come good at some point. Harry may chip in