When Mauricio Pochettino took over at Tottenham, the manager’s intense pre-season training regime became obvious.

It had three big effects. His team were fitter than almost anyone else, they scored plenty of late goals, and they were able to power through the most physically demanding periods of the season. But it also has a negative one: under Pochettino, slow starts are endemic as his players have to get used to competitive games again.

“At times it was very tough. You needed two hearts to play the Pochettino way,” the former Southampton midfielder Jack Cork said when asked about his old manager. Whatever the Argentine manager is doing, it’s clearly working, but no system is perfect. There are always disbenefits.

One of those problems might be exacerbated by the club’s quiet transfer window so far. And whilst the summer is still young, it’s not the prospect of making fewer signings than their top six rivals that is worrying, it’s the fact that whoever does arrive at the club won’t have time to bed in before the intense Pochettino pre-season kicks into gear.

Players always talk about needing a full pre-season with their new teammates under their belts before taking on the season, and that can only be amplified when you’re playing under a manager like Pochettino. And you just need to look at the signings Spurs have made over the last few seasons to see that.

It was in late June last year when Victor Wanyama signed for Spurs, and played a starring role in the team’s midfield last season. But Pochettino had to wait until deadline day to seal moves for Georges-Kevin Nkoudou and Moussa Sissoko, both of whom flopped.

It would be wrong to lay the blame solely on the fact that these players signed so late in the window, of course. Vincent Janssen signed for the club early in July and still struggled. Perhaps you could argue that all of these players didn’t get to participate in 100% of the pre-season training last year, but you might also argue that no amount of pre-season training would have salvaged decent seasons from those players.

But there may yet be hope: when Janssen scored his first Spurs goal from open play against Millwall in the FA Cup, the reaction wasn’t just relief from the player but from his teammates, too, who all crowded around him to celebrate his strike.

There are shades of another signing whose second season was much better than his first.

Son Heung-Min was announced as a Spurs player on 28th August, just a couple of days before the transfer window ended, and long after pre-season had become normal training. His first season was a disappointment, and in the absence of Harry Kane, the Korean couldn’t step up and help his team. Last season was a different story, though, as Son bagged two player of the month awards and scored 14 league goals - certainly a much better return than the four he netted in 28 appearances the season before last.

He’s another player who seems to play a huge part in the dressing room. Those elaborate handshakes don’t create themselves. Janssen - and indeed Sissoko, though it looks less likely - may well come good after a season at the club and a full pre-season behind them.

The list goes on. Toby Alderweireld was signed in early July 2015 whilst Benjamin Stambouli was snapped up on deadline day in 2014. Clinton N’Jie signed in August whilst Dele Alli had a full pre-season after returning from MK Dons where he spent half the season on loan after signing for Spurs in January.

That doesn’t prove that Spurs signings flop if they’re not given a full pre-season. Just because there seems to be a correlation doesn’t mean there’s a causation. But it does suggest that Pochettino’s pre-season training style might be at least a factor. It’s pretty striking that the players Spurs sign early in the transfer window tend to flop, and although not all have been given the chance to rectify that the following season, the case of Son shows what a difference a full summer of training seems to make.

It’s worrying, then, that Spurs haven’t made any signings just yet. And whilst most clubs in the same position so far this season are perhaps worrying unduly about their lack of activity, Pochettino’s pre-season style, coupled with the history of flops signed later in the window suggests that early signings matter to Tottenham more than they do for most teams.

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