What is happening out there?

By the end of this weekend, a third of the English Premier League season will have gone by and little by little we are getting closer towards knowing how the log table will look like come May when an eventful nine months of nail-biting football will come to an end and teams get the fruit of their sweat. Most of what has happened so far has defied predictions that were made before a ball was kicked.

For example, a lot was expected of Tottenham Hotspur this season after their £110 million outlay on new talent to compensate for the departure of their talisman Gareth Bale in a world record fee to Real Madrid. This was the season when many pundits expected them to give their top-four ambitions a real go and transform themselves into an established European force.

The start was really solid as they hardly conceded goals while notching a series of single-goal victories mostly via the penalty spot. In the last few weeks, however, when most people expected them to have found their feet and gelled as a team, things seem to have unravelled and no-one would have seen Sunday’s 6-0 demolition at the hands of Manchester City coming.

Before Sunday’s capitulation we all knew about the club’s problems in front of goal despite having such an impressive array of attacking and creative talent at their disposal. Nine goals from 11 outings before the trip to Eastlands did not make pleasant reading but at least they had a good defensive record. Conceding only six goals in their preceding matches was as good as some of the best teams in the world.

How then did they concede as many goals in one match as they had let in 11 games before? Why are they still failing to find the back of the net in open play with all those big-name signings on their roster? Why are Spurs failing to transfer their free-scoring style in the Europa League onto the domestic scene? These are the questions that many fans and others involved with the club are agonising over.

For the record, at 10 goals, City’s Sergio Aguero has scored more league goals than the entire Spurs team this season. The team’s overall tally of nine goals is the same as Liverpool strikers Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suarez have each scored so far, the latter from seven matches. All this puts into context the pressure that manager Andre Villas-Boas must be feeling at the moment.

Of course, Sunday’s result had as much to do with Spurs’ problems as it did with the Citizens’ invincibility on home soil. Manuel Pellegrini’s men are the season’s enigma because they are unrecognisable at home from the side that looks ordinary on their travels. In their six away games so far, the Manchester side has won only once, drawn one more game and lost the rest.

Contrast that with the team’s record at the Etihad Stadium — six wins out of six games and scoring 26 games in the process (an average of 4.3 goals per game) which is more than the total number of goals (home and away) any other team in the league has managed to score so far. Just what is it about away games that makes all those big stars freeze when they play on other pitches? Interesting, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, there is also some tasty action tomorrow when Spurs look to bounce back against defending champions Manchester United before Chelsea host Southampton. Expect some shifts on the table.