It was never deemed to be a poor start by Spurs. In fact wasn't it their best ever start to a PL season? It's their performances which were drawing criticism.
Exactly this. I think they won about 4 games 1-0, and 3 of those were due to penalties which obviously gave them 12 points, but could have easily been 4 points which would make a huge difference in the table now.
On the other hand, we've won a few games by 3 or 4 goals which has drawn great plaudits for the way we are playing, but have still lost quite a few games but they've been forgotten about a bit more due to the fact we performed well in them (City & Chelsea)