One phrase crops up time and time again whenever old pros gather to talk about Tottenham Hotspur: they "flatter to deceive."
After all, even when they had Gareth Bale and Luka Modric in the team, Spurs' famous Lilywhite shirts were nowhere to be seen in the title race. They were specialists in finishing fourth or fifth, at a respectable distance from the real action.
When Bale went to Madrid for a mountain of money, the club's supermarket trolley dash to buy replacements yielded too many duds -- perhaps symbolised by the misfiring Roberto Soldado.
But something special is happening at White Hart Lane these days, and you sense a first title since Bill Nicholson's "Glory, Glory" days of 1961 is not out of the question.