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A memorable second half from Tottenham Hotspur, buoyed by a memorable message from Ange Postecoglou.

“I always tell the players: If I were a racehorse, I would have blinders.”

The point Postecoglou made was to block everything out and just go for it – and his team duly reached a pace that Aston Villa couldn’t match. The entire second half was a manifestation of the manager’s ideal. It was a whirlwind that Aston Villa were caught up in as the control that Unai Emery tried to assert in the first half was simply blown away. In the end, the Spurs had a good starting position for a 4-1 win. They carried on and tried to play the football that Villa couldn’t play.

That’s not to criticize Emery. His tactics in the first half seemed appropriate to the situation and the team will obviously be tested more as the Champions League becomes more intense.

That’s also why talk of a title challenge was premature, but so is the pressure on Postecoglou. The Spurs manager’s comments are arguably even more relevant in this context. His side have endured a lot of scrutiny, but that is in line with the wider Premier League narrative.

It’s been a strange season so far, with no one apart from Liverpool and Nottingham Forest really taking their chances. Everyone else seemed fallible, to a greater degree than normal. So look at the table and there is a Spurs team that is supposedly in crisis recently and is actually in a relatively good seventh place.

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Admittedly, something like this is said every season – that there will be fewer points this year, that it is open to Manchester City not doing so – and then tends to correct itself. But even taking that into account, there was still plenty of room for error in these early games. Very little seems to be a guarantee.

This game was probably a typical example. Had anyone stuck to the ‘feel’ of the two clubs’ campaigns and some of the results, a first half match prediction would have looked very similar.

The game seemed like Villa would “thwart Spurs”. Whenever Postecoglou’s team had the ball on the halfway line, Emery pushed his players back, obviously not wanting them to press too high. The reason was obvious. Anything else would have benefited Postecoglou’s tactics. Villa would have offered the space at the back that Spurs like to push into. Why bother when you can just wait for the kind of opportunity a counterattack or set piece that a Postecoglou team will inevitably give you?

This happened in the 32nd minute when Morgan Rogers shot forward from close range after Pedro Porro and Dominic Solanke combined to somehow take a corner. There was even a break chance from Ollie Watkins, which the striker hit wide of the goal in a way he wouldn’t have done in last year’s form.

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This also points to an important reason why you’re making the effort to do something different. While Postecoglou’s Spurs have that remaining inconsistency, both due to the manager’s approach and the team’s young profile, he has also ensured that they have the ability to suddenly get up to speed. It can be a dangerous game, but Spurs have periods where threats come from all directions.

The manner in which they achieved their goals was the perfect example. For the first time, Son Heung-Min delivered a brilliant cross from the left shortly after half-time, which Brennan Johnson finished with his opportunism. The performance was almost unstoppable, and so did Spurs’ football.

Just when the game seemed to be coming to an end, they stepped it up again. “The thing with us is, we have another course in us, two or three more courses,” Postecoglou smiled.

They showed that as Villa faded, with Emery admitting: “We accept the result because we made mistakes. “We made mistakes in the first half but quickly corrected them.”

The difference in the second half was evident in one key area. Villa had spent most of the game concentrating on filling the area in front of their own goal, knowing that this was where Dejan Kulusevski and the two full-backs could do a lot of damage. It was gradually emptied as the Spurs opened it up further. Pape Matar Sarr, Johnson and Kulusevski had a miraculously quick exchange through the middle to put Solanke ahead for a superb finish.

Yashin Trophy winner Emiliano Martinez couldn’t do anything and suddenly had to start speeding up his kick-outs. Instead, Spurs ended the game quickly as Solanke scored his third goal. It was another ball from Villa’s right, which presented a problem for Emery.

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Postecoglou, meanwhile, has a potentially big selection problem with Spurs appearing at one stage to have strength in depth. James Maddison came off the bench to score a divine free-kick, putting the icing on the cake, but the question now is whether it is his best effort. The Spurs looked like a more motivated team that fit together better without him.

On the other hand, the entire game would be a lesson in not reading too much into short-term results. Villa are not yet title contenders. Spurs are not yet in the middle of the table. Ironically, the two teams are pretty close in terms of overall quality, despite the result.

That’s what Postecoglou meant by the blinders. Praise will now be given to his players, but they should not read too much into it.

“You don’t fall off cliffs and climb mountains in a week,” Postecoglou said. “For me, it’s all part of the same process. We will experience bumps along the way. It’s how you address them, how you deal with them, how you recover from them and learn from them.”

Emery, similar to his own players, said: “Balance is the first message I send in the dressing room because it’s 38 games.”

Only then does reality truly emerge.