You make points i, so much, want to be right but feel i would just be kidding myself.
The reason i used the Champion's League results was you rightly sneered at the pre-season Juventus game where Ndombele created an assist as soon as he came on. Now, however, you are trying to downplay what were the most important games of the season for every one of those clubs.
They beat Man City and Ajax over two legs. Yes they lost to Liverpool in the final but 2 out of 3 is positive and they are not doing that if they are as poor as us.
I understand your points about the defence as i know you rate Bellerin and Holding much higher than i do as i'm a negative nancy (glass half empty) kind of guy who cannot look past their deficiencies which are, respectively, allowing crosses in and lack of pace.
I also see Porchettino still striving to improve on what they have by shipping out their weakest links (Rose and Trippier) while we have spent a month but still have nobody this season apart from a seemingly great but ultimately unproven 18 year old who will spend a year away.
Our midfield is anchored by Xhaka with anchor (big, slow, awkward and cumbersome) being the operative word requiring one midfielder to babysit him to cover for his inability to tackle and propensity to give the ball away in dangerous areas.
Torreira, who is one of the best in the business, got burnt out in 6 months doing this. This is before we get into his extreme one-footedness that limits his attacking prowess.
Spurs are also not standing still as you mention so we need to improve at a much faster rate to overtake them.
As i said in my reply to Dula, i sincerely hope that you are right even if my belief that it will take more than 2 good centre-backs to make our team better than spurs.
