This is with Daniel Storey, a subscriber-only newsletter from The i Paper. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here.

Hello and welcome back to The Score, my weekly column on the biggest talking points of the Premier League weekend. For the new season, we’ve given it a little revamp – with a new structure and some shiny bells and whistles at the end. Please let me know your (positive) thoughts on social media: @danielstorey85

Another Tottenham Hotspur season and more records to be broken. This is now the first time since 1974 that Tottenham have lost the first two league matches of a season without scoring a goal. They were better than against Brentford – such a low bar it should make you laugh – but Newcastle United have suffered enforced flux and found it way too easy in the second half.

The answer, it appears, is just to keep on spending. Sunday morning brought news of Iliman Ndiaye arriving from Everton with Richarlison going the other way (unrelated deals, honest). Take a deep breath and now list the attacking players who must be competing for a maximum of four positions: Savinho, Matthys Tel, Ndiaye, Dominic Solanke, Omar Marmoush, Wilson Odobert, Mohammed Kudus, James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski, Xavi Simons.

The theory – and it probably carries some weight – is that piling up enough proven Premier League experience and talent will eventually cause a positive reaction. You cannot spend hundreds of millions of pounds on those who have done it elsewhere and have them all just fall into a black hole of incompetence. Honestly, you can’t.

But there are two caveats to that theory. The first is this: more than any other club in the top flight, Spurs needed a fast start to this season to ease the biggest concerns that the entire place was cursed. By buying so many new players (and it is almost an entirely new set of outfielders now), you create greater need for patience because none of them have ever played together before.

That presents a chaotic, difficult start to the season as inevitable, even if the details of their first two results were evidently not ideal. It is just that every supporter is so indoctrinated towards things going awry that they needed a sprinting start rather than this stumbling mess.

The other problem: what does this do to the mindset of new signings? Spurs deliberately paid the asking price to get deals done quickly ahead of the competition, considered a necessity given the lack of European football. But does that attract players joining for the right reasons and does it mean they might – even subconsciously – lack some stomach for the fight if things get tough again?

And on that second point, Roberto De Zerbi’s comments about not being able to buy mentality in the transfer market were instructive. Because: 1) you really can, Roberto, and 2) what does it say about the new signings that you are already accusing them of lacking the mentality to be better than this?

It will come good eventually. Good players eventually work things out and Spurs have signed plenty. But we are already lowering our expectations of where they might end up this season and De Zerbi needs to get a handle on this quickly.

Newcastle and ‘verticality’ might be a perfect match

That Newcastle crisis didn’t last long. Having been the better team against Liverpool last weekend, Matthias Jaissle earned his first win as a Premier League manager at Tottenham with some comfort and in some style. Rebuilds can be fun!

When Jaissle arrived, he explained that his aim was to play with “verticality”, which is a modern translation of getting the ball up the pitch quickly when you win the ball and trying to get quick players in behind the defensive line before it is set.

The principal beneficiary of that style? Anthony Elanga. Elanga flourished at Forest when given space to run into but became unstuck last season because Eddie Howe’s team were too sluggish and slow in possession. He has been reborn already under Jaissle, becoming the first Newcastle player to score in the first two games of a Premier League season since Alan Shearer.

Coventry already in firefighting mode

A weekend of unacceptably bad vibes for Coventry City. It started with empty seats at the CBS due to a new ticketing process that disallowed season ticket holders from transferring tickets to friends and family if they could not attend the fixture. It continued with a home defeat against the club who, pre-season, were the most likely to finish behind them.

Coventry have been more circumspect than Ipswich Town and Hull City this summer. I have no issue with that given their financial woes of the past. But when that combines with early home defeat against a likely relegation battle peer, don’t be surprised when supporters start to panic.

Coventry’s greatest issue lies in the lack of creative force having got promoted. They turned 69 per cent into just 11 shots and 1.29 xG. Hull were happy to sit back and back themselves to repel the threat and did so with far too much ease. Remember that this Hull side conceded 66 goals in the Championship last season and four of their starting back five were part of that defence.

Rashford gets a new start at Man Utd

There is little to be learned from Bruno Fernandes’ creativity in open play, but far more from how Marcus Rashford flourished on the left wing. There was an intent to take on Dara O’Shea that is directly proportional to Rashford’s confidence; we know how he tends to turn back to pass when things aren’t going his way.

Without the ball, there was something entirely new. The accusation – long-term in its application – is that Rashford’s offers insufficient tracking back and defensive work to account for the attacking returns in an age when the best wingers are either super-productive or do both attacking and defending.

This gave hope of another new start. Rashford’s three tackles were only bettered by one other United player. There was a moment in the first half where Rashford lost possession in a duel with Abdul Fatawu, who sprinted away from him. Rashford sprinted with him and, when a teammate forced Fatawu to slow down, it was he who nicked the ball away. Old Trafford roared as if it were a goal.

Goal of the weekend – Kevin Schade (Brentford)

We all have our kinks and one of mine is finishes of a type that you don’t see very often – variety is the spice of goals, people.

Which brings us to Schade and Brentford’s opener at Elland Road.

The German flicked a drilled cross with the outside of his right boot so that it looped up and over James Trafford and into the top corner. It is an outrageous piece of skill.

Mistake of the weekend – Bart Verbruggen (Brighton)

The equivalent of a slip fielder dropping a simple catch because he had too much time and so forgot to maintain concentration.

Verbruggen can reasonably claim some interference from a teammate, but having come to claim the loose ball he had to do better than juggle it to Romeo Lavia.

This Chelsea attack is going to be good enough without giving them freebies.

Player of the weekend – Rayan Cherki (Man City)

I’m not saying that France would have won the World Cup if Cherki had been given more than 96 minutes, but I am saying that it would probably have been worth a go.

Cherki started as the most central advanced midfielder (although swapped positions with Phil Foden a fair bit) against Crystal Palace and had a lovely old time.

There was some doubt whether Enzo Maresca might take to Cherki given his reputation as a luxury attacking option, so it was interesting to hear City’s manager praising his midfielder for his work rate, pressing off the ball and man-marking of Adam Wharton when Palace were in possession. The rest of us enjoyed the two goals because we aren’t sickos.

Stat of the weekend

Alexander Isak had 13 touches against Nottingham Forest, the fewest by a Liverpool player to play 90 minutes in a Premier League match since full data was collected in 2003-04 (Opta).