Like so much of western culture, football is very much about what is trendy.

Let's not forget that most owners and shareholders regard football as a commodity. To them, it is a product that they sell and this product must run with the trends in order to be successful.

Pinning the blame for a failing team almost entirely on the manager, and then sacking him, is one of these trends. It brings with it the excitement, the anticipation and the optimism that the next guy will be “the one”.

But this positivity, although temporarily refreshing, is superficial and it very rarely brings about real, sustained success – the very success shareholders strive for in order to reap even bigger financial rewards.

This course of action almost always sets a team back a number of years and it is something Tottenham have already found out before. Thank goodness Damien Comolli doesn't still work at the club because another debacle like the sacking of Martin Jol in 2007 would be catastrophic for them.

God forbid they buck the trend – like Arsenal have – and offer Andre Villas-Boas unequivocal support. Yet this is exactly what they should do. Didn't Spurs just enjoy their best ever start to a Premier League season?

At the same point last term, after 12 games, Tottenham had three fewer points than they have now, were 11 points behind league-leaders Manchester City, 10 behind the second-placed team and six points off fourth.

This season they are eight points from top, four from second and just two from fourth. Let's all use our brains, shall we?

Villas-Boas is still a very young, inexperienced manager by any sensible person's estimations and he is the only manager out of the top six clubs that finds himself in the situation that he does. This is also an entirely new situation for him too.

He inherited a team at Porto – one that would have done exceptionally well not to have been successful – and he inherited a team at Chelsea. He inherited Harry Redknapp's team at Tottenham and earned the club's highest ever points total in the Premier League, despite losing both Luka Modric and Rafael Van der Vaart.

Now he has lost Gareth Bale and he has six or seven new first-team players to integrate into a new club, new methods and a new ferociously competitive league. Let's not forget that Roberto Soldado, Erik Lamela, Christian Eriksen, Nacer Chadli, Etienne Capoue, Paulinho and Vlad Chiriches have never played in the Premier League before.

Villas-Boas is the only manager in the top six with such a challenge on his hands. Yet Spurs have started better than the previous year under his leadership once again.

While many would argue that the likes of Sergio Aguero at Manchester City, Oscar at Chelsea or Mesut Ozil at Arsenal haven't needed time to settle, it's important to note that these players have been introduced into teams whose core is already established and experienced in the division.

Tottenham have lost the established core of experienced Premier League players that were successful under Redknapp and that lingered on with Villas-Boas last season. Bale, Scott Parker, Tom Huddlestone, Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Clint Dempsey, William Gallas and even Steven Caulker have all gone. Jermain Defoe can't get in the team and Mousa Dembele and Aaron Lennon have featured sparingly.

Inevitably then, when Spurs' new players have diminished self-belief they are looking around the pitch searching for a teammate who has some answers; someone else to draw confidence from, who knows that to do, who will galvanise and stir them.

But instead what they find are more players in the same situation, with the same bewildered faces. Like a group of fresh university students, the unfamiliarity either unites them or it sends them into isolation. It is up to Villas-Boas to prove he is the professor that can unite them like his reputation suggests.

Of course it will take time and patience from both the fans and those who are reportedly eyeing-up the trigger in the Tottenham boardroom, but what would also help is the galvanising influence of an experienced captain. These are the situations in which the likes of Michael Dawson and Jan Vertonghen need to prove their leadership skills – not just Villas-Boas.