Season after season, Spurs have gone into the season wanting, hoping, aspiring to break the threshold of mediocrity that seems to encircle White Hart Lane like buzzards around a rotting corpse. We have come close many times before. No matter how much we did there was always something that held us back, the halter around our neck never came off, the harder we try the more futile it seemed.

Under Martin Jol, we qualified for the, then, Uefa Cup. Then the next season there was lasagna-poli. Even before that there was Pedro Mendes' infamous goal against Man United that stopped us from qualifying for the Uefa Cup. No matter how many Berbatov and Keane partnerships we had or the number of Modrić's and Van Der Vaart's we had or the how well Michael Dawson or Ledley King played, something always made the horse rear its head in fear of achieving what it on paper should. It could have been the aforementioned travesties or King's knees exploding or Dawson in his perennial cycle of the playing pitch and the injury table or Berbatov being driven to Old Trafford by Ferguson or the late season capitulations that have dogged Spurs for the last two seasons. It could have been anything but there was always something.

Aaron Lennon is no longer a collection of dreams and aspirations but a bundle of joy, goals and assists. For a number of seasons, he was the embodiment of Spurs. A player who showed in glimpses that he has quality but rarely shows this quality to its fullest. It's fitting that he has started playing his best football at the same time that Spurs have risen from the ashes of last season's disaster. #Narrative is a powerful force, after all. The players are no longer underachieving. Michael Dawson has shaken off the shackles of injury and is now England's best available centre-back. The perennial under-achievers are now over-achieving. Tottenham have thrown off the halter and are performing to the best of their ability. The stigma of mediocrity has not only been broken but it has been blown out of the water.

One man can be thanked for this, Luís André de Pina Cabral e Villas-Boas. A winning mentality is the greatest asset Spurs have gained by the appointment of Villas-Boas as head-coach. Lloris, Dembélé, Garetiano Balnaldo, Jonny Verts, and Gylfi are all assets of great value but as demonstrated by our cuddly neighbours in Red and Blue, assets don't necesarily equate to success. Psychology is a powerful force and the best managers are masters of it. It's a strange feeling for all Spurs fans to not feel that the necromorph is lurking around the next corner waiting to burst our bubble and see how far we fall or how hard. It's a refreshing feeling and long may be it last.

Watch out Amsterdam, we're coming for ya.