The Athletic

On Monday night, Tottenham went two points clear at the top of the Premier League

with goals from James Madison and Captain Song-Hung-Mim.

McArison, into Son, son says himself and scored for Tom.

Andch Poster Coglu squad may lack depth and experience, but is it time to take spurs more seriously?

And as expectation levels continue to rise, will Daniel Levy spend in January to help bolster a potential title challenge?

I'm Michael Bailey. Welcome to the Athletic Football Podcast.

Thank you. I'm Michael Bailey. Welcome to the Athletic Football Podcast. Well, hello there. I'm joined for this one by the Athletics-Tottenham correspondent, Charlie Ackleshire.

Hello, Charlie. Hello Charlie.

Hello, how you doing? I'm good, thank you. We've also got football writer Adam Crafton here as well.

Adam, good day to you. Thank you. So Tottenham, they are two points clear at the top of the Premier League after their 2-0 win over Fulham. That was their seventh win of the season. They're currently still unbeaten as well. Tottenham are absolutely flying.

So how are we assessing them? Beyond that, Charlie. How good are they?

They are good. I think broadly speaking, I think they've got a really good first 11.

If you want to talk about them as kind of title contenders, I think they'll have to get very lucky with injuries.

But they're not in Europe. They're not in the Carabar Cup. So in theory, there should be less of a load. But they're doing brilliantly, and it shows how far expectations have changed in such short space of time. We're talking about them potentially as title contenders when the start of the season, when they just lost Harry Kane, of the back of an eighth-placed finish, I think most people saying, well, if they get back into Europe, some sort of European competition, it'll be a good season. Lots of wins in different ways, routine wins, which is kind of what the Fulham game was. I think we probably all agree with that. They've had late wins. They've had wins over big teams, maybe lucky wins as well if we talk about the Liverpool game.

So it has been a great start across different various opponents and what have you.

But what's your instinct with Spurs initially, Adam, in terms of where they are?

It just kind of shows what's possible when really the key people at the club want to be there.

Like last season you looked at Spurs for most of the year. You saw a manager that didn't really seem to want to be there that much.

And Antonio Conte, a leading player in Harry Kane that didn't see his future at Tottenham.

And I think even if those individual performers can, in their own way, be excelling as Kane was,

I think it still feeds into a culture that this isn't, you know, this isn't the best place that everyone could be. And now,

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