It feels, just three games into Antonin Kinsky's career in the English game, as if he is almost genetically coded to play for this neurotic, confounding Tottenham team. The 21-year-old Czech might only have been in the country for 10 days, but already he is emblematic of his club's time-honoured lurch between emotional extremes. First he marks a clean sheet in a Carabao Cup semi-final with a long, poignant embrace of his sister Andrea, then he commits professional harakiri in a north London derby by indulging in nonchalant backheels with his side struggling. So ornate were his goal-kick routines that by the end, you could only watch them through splayed fingers.
Few could doubt that Kinsky belongs amid the chaos. Ange Postecoglou's commitment to the art of attack has become so unyielding that the goalkeeper was specifically recruited from Slavia Prague for his confidence with the ball at his feet - a quality so plainly lacking in Fraser Forster, his rival for the gloves. But there are times, surely, when discretion is the better part of valour. One such occasion is when you are trailing 2-1 to your sworn enemies, en route to an 11th defeat of the season. Rio Ferdinand spoke for many Tottenham fans when he implored Kinsky to launch the ball forward, not stroke it around in pretty patterns on the edge of his area.
It is a scalding baptism that he has been forced to endure. As Kinsky is fast discovering, the high moments under Postecoglou rarely last for long. No sooner was he the toast of his home stadium for his shut-out of Liverpool than he headed down the Seven Sisters Road for an altogether more chastening experience, left exposed by defenders who insisted on bobbling the ball back to him. True, Kinsky was at fault for Arsenal's winner, extending a weak hand that allowed Leandro Trossard's strike to bounce beyond him. And yet it seemed unfair to blame a Premier League debutant for Tottenham's maddening dysfunction. He could hardly be expected to stage a rescue act when the only convincing leaders among his team-mates, Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall, were both 18 years old.
This is what it has come to, when the only Tottenham players with the requisite appetite for their most important fixture are teenagers. It is remarkable, in the circumstances, that Postecoglou has yet to come under more public pressure to keep his job. The "are you not entertained?" mantra is no longer fooling anybody: his team are now two places below West Ham in 13th, despite having a goal difference that is 25 superior. His record in his four north London derbies - one draw, three defeats - is indefensible, especially when so little fight is offered on the pitch.
The Australian is sufficiently hardwired to understand that supporters' forbearance has its limits. This would explain why he showed such anger in the aftermath, raging at his players for being so "passive" with the stakes so high. He was so seething with frustration that he could not even muster praise for Gray or Bergvall, merely expressing a hope that they shared in the disappointment, in the sense of shame at losing so tamely in a game of this magnitude. It was the right message from a manager veering in the wrong direction. Seven league victories in 21? That is not some noble sacrifice for Postecoglou's art, it is relegation form.
Kinsky scarcely represents the solution Tottenham crave. When the team are toiling with a creaking, makeshift defence, and when their captain Son Heung-min is so visibly exhausted, what purpose does it serve signing a goalkeeper? What magnifies the exasperation is that they remain capable of surprises when the mood takes them. They have beaten Manchester City 4-0 at this campaign at the Etihad and thwarted Liverpool just two weeks after shipping six goals against the league leaders. But they are unable to summon any consistency - a flaw that can only be identified as a failure of coaching.
You can tell the stress is beginning to bite. When Dominic Solanke tried to conjure a last-gasp equaliser with a bicycle kick that went horribly awry, Postecoglou threw out his arms in disgust. He should also shoulder his share of the blame, though. For it is Tottenham's paralysing anxiety, their sheer uncertainty at the tactics they are being asked to follow, that creates these acts of desperation. In the initial honeymoon period, 18 long months ago, people understood what was meant by "Ange-ball", a term that first stuck to him at Celtic. It meant courage, joy, entertainment, a refusal to fear making mistakes. His latest side represent the antithesis of that template, full as it is of tired, jaded players and teenagers playing out of position.
The longer this goes on, the more difficult it will be for Postecoglou to defend his record. With each day that passes, the greater the significance the Carabao Cup assumes, as Tottenham's most realistic chance of ending a fraught season with silverware. Traditionally, the finest tribute you could pay to him was that even if you did not always like the destination, you could sit back and savour the journey. As it stands, his long-suffering disciples are enjoying neither.