Sarr strike and Martínez own goal give Spurs edge against Manchester United

A warm sun over White Hart Lane, only a few wisps of white in the vast blue sky. Perhaps after all the clouds and confusion of the close-season, a glorious summer really is breaking for Tottenham. Or perhaps Manchester United are just unexpectedly terrible. They got away with it at Wolves; they did not get away with it here.

The only positive for Erik ten Hag is that United at least have three more points after two games than they did last season, but the performances have been just as ragged. They may feel there were a little unfortunate to lose here but they had been lucky on Monday, and for all that this was a patchy if exciting game of frequent errors and occasional glimmers of real quality, there was too little coherence in their play for them to claim with any conviction that they had been robbed.

For Tottenham fans, meanwhile, there is the rare joy of watching a team that looks as though it wants to be there.

The stage is exceptional; the team not at that level yet. Or in truth anywhere close to it. But the noise as a trumpeter led a pre-kick-off rendition of When the Spurs Go Marching In was undeniably rousing. There was also a baffling tifo in the South Stand as, in what Ange Postecoglou will hope is a metaphor, a series of disparate pieces slowly coalesced into a coherent whole, the message “Welcome to N17”. Which is surely not a phrase even the Haringey Tourist Board, if such a thing exists, has contemplated broadcasting before. Perhaps it was meant as a threat.

If there was early-season optimism, it was also tempered by frustration from home fans. Although season ticket prices have been frozen, a rejig of how games are categorised has led to a general increase in costs, and it was that as much as the sale of Harry Kane that seemed to exercise fans. “To Dare Is Too Dear. ENIC out,” read one flag, adapting the club motto, while a Kane chant was repurposed to “Exploiting your own”.

Kane is less a cause of the uncertainty at Tottenham than a symptom. At some point, the kindest thing is to let the star leave and seek his fortune elsewhere, rather than expecting him to submit to the demands of loyalty and sacrifice his ambitions for a club that has stagnated in the four years since reaching the Champions League final.

However accepting most fans may seem to be, though, and however useful it may be for Postecoglou in damping expectations and making clear this is a season of transition, it does leave Spurs with attacking problems.

Richarlison, as at Brentford last week, started at centre-forward but he has never been prolific – in part because he has spent a lot of his career coming from wide. A total of 12 league starts plus 15 substitute appearances last season yielded a single goal. He was dispossessed more often than the total of shots and passes he attempted in the first half. Given how open United had looked in a frankly fortuitous 1-0 win over Wolves on Monday, it was striking how little impression Spurs made against the same midfield.

Not until the half hour did James Maddison really get the sort of run through space that Matheus Cunha had enjoyed over and over, initiating a move that culminated with Pape Sarr jabbing a shot into the chest of André Onana.

Having largely been in control to that point – albeit the end result of that was nothing more than a string of headers over the bar from players who may or may not have been offside – United suddenly looked vulnerable.

Pedro Porro, running on to a smart pass from Son Heung-min after the Spurs skipper had wobbled horizontally across the box, rattled a shot against the bar and, as the ball was returned to the centre by Sarr, it deflected off Luke Shaw, past Onana and against the outside of the post. It wasn’t a goal but for a fanbase used to Antonio Conte’s football, it felt like about a month’s worth of action condensed into 15 seconds.

The sense of fragility continued into the second half as Spurs took the lead four minutes after the break, Sarr sprinting 40 yards to lash Dejan Kulusevski’s deflected cross into the roof of the net.

Postecoglou may have made Spurs livelier but he has not made them any more secure and, within minutes of Spurs taking the lead, Antony had sidefooted an effort against the post and Guglielmo Vicario made an athletic tip over to keep out a Casemiro header.

But that was not the start of a United surge. Postecoglou brought on Ben Davies and Ivan Perisic to shut down the left-hand side and Tottenham had the game closed down before Davies’s scuffed volley trundled in off Lisandro Martínez to seal the win. There were too many glitches for this to be considered anything other than a first tentative step on a very long journey, but at least Spurs seem to know which way they are going. At some point over the summer, United seem to have misplaced their map.