Tottenham Hotspur have made their best-ever start to an English Premier League campaign following seven wins and two losses in their opening nine fixtures.

The north London outfit are only two points behind the table-topping duo of Manchester City and Liverpool, and can be regarded as one of the dark horses for the title race.

Tottenham's last league title came in 1961, while their last piece of silverware came in 2008 - the League Cup.

Spurs came close to winning the league three seasons ago, with eventual-winners Leicester City their only hurdle for the majority of the campaign.

However, their title challenge collapsed few matchdays to the end of the campaign, with Arsenal eventually piping them to second-place on the last day of the campaign.

While some Tottenham fans are most likely mad at their team's silverware drought, manager Mauricio Pochettino has claimed that getting the club to play regular Champions League football was the main objective when he took over in 2014.

"Four-and-a-half-years ago when they offered me the Tottenham job the idea was to build a team for the Champions League in the moment we arrive in the new stadium," he recently told Skysports.

"This is our third Champions League in a row, one at White Hart Lane, three times at Wembley. We are ahead of the project. We are miles ahead."

Apparently, winning a major title has never been a main objective of Tottenham in recent seasons, and it says a lot about their unwillingness to invest heavily in recent transfer markets.

Going by Pochettino's comments, Champions League football is the main aim right now at Tottenham, and it doesn't look like they would be splashing the cash or breaking the bank anytime soon.

Written for FHD by Adefunmiloye Alani.

Newcastle United are rock bottom in the English Premier League table after losing seven and drawing two of their opening nine games.

The Toons risk relegating to the Championship just two seasons after returning to the top-flight, and manager Rafa Benitez seems to be at wit's end regarding turning his side's fortunes around.

Popular pundit Jamie Redknapp believes the Spaniard is responsible for Newcastle's woes, blaming his tactics and style of play.

"Newcastle struggled in front of goal once again in their home defeat by Brighton and the players must be running out of patience with Rafa Benitez," the former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder wrote in his Daily Mail column.

"Newcastle's players are not as bad as results and performances suggest but they are being hamstrung by their manager's negative tactic."

Benitez has often set his team up defensively since guiding them back to the Premier League, and it doesn't seem like it's working anymore.

Newcastle have scored just six goals and shipped 14 goals, and according to whoscored.com, averaged just 41.1% possession and registered 10 shots per game on an average.

The Saint James' Park outfit have already faced four of the teams currently in top five, and while the tough run of fixtures hasn't exactly favoured them, thus forcing Benitez's into being overly defensive, it's expected that they perform well in their subsequent games against the mid-table sides.

Written for Flaming Hair Dryer by Adefunmiloye Alani.

British tabloid, the Daily Express are reporting Champions League holders Real Madrid are eyeing move for Manchester City ace Raheem Sterling and could submit a bid when the transfer window opens in January.

The England international and former Liverpool attacking midfielder still has not put pen to a new contract with the reigning Premier League champions and his current deal with City is said to run until 18 months. As per reports garnered, FHD sources believes Sterling is requesting a pay hike (£100,000 per week) on his existing £180,000 per week deal and with Manchester City clearly not buying this idea, Pep Guardiola's side run the risk of letting one of their star player face the exit door at the final year of his contract.

Real Madrid have had a poor start to the new season with Cristiano Ronaldo's exit to Juventus proven to be a bigger part of the team's poor performance. Without any doubt, fighting spirit, the zeal to win and wreak havoc on opposition defences is no long there with Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale both misfiring while Mariano Díaz Mejía - simply known as Mariano - who was signed as a direct replacement to Ronaldo, has not been able to live up to expectation. Mariano's last outing against Levante over the weekend was incredibly poor while the likes of Marco Asensio, Isco, Lucas Vazquez, and others have no been better.

That being said, Real Madrid's president Florentino Perez is expected to make some big signings in January or in the summer and signing Sterling seems to be Real's first priority. Although, the club have in recent years moved away from their "Galatico" policy, but as we all know, surviving in modern football in this era, requires spending huge amounts of money on transfers and no club can run from this.

With Leeds sitting pretty at the top of the table in September, Thomas Christensen was singing Orta's praises stating: "If there's something I need, I speak to Victor Orta - he's the Wikipedia of football." This view was shared by many of the Leeds fans.

Being Director of football at Leeds is not Orta's first job in English football. Before joining Leeds Orta was employed at Middlesbrough following a strong recommendation from then manager Aitor Karanka. Orta was responsible for the majority of signings on Teesside overseeing a disappointing return season to the Premiership which resulted in the club whimpering to relegation.

During this season of turmoil there was strong rumors of a rift between the local English players and the foreign signings recommended. Following the sacking of Karanka and during Steve Agnew's first match Orta had to be physically removed by Leo Percovich (goal keeping coach) after demanding to talk to 'his' players. Orta's employment at Middlesbrough ended with the clubs relegation to the Championship, with chairman Steve Gibson highlighting the clubs poor recruitment policy a key contribution factor.

However the new influx of signings seem to be struggling with the demands of Championship football with only Samu Siaz showing signs of consistent quality. Leeds have gone from passing Burton off the pitch during a 5-0 rout early in September to being constantly out fought and beaten by more physical teams who have adapted to Leeds new playing style.

One area Leeds have had noticeable problems with is their defense. The loss of championship experience from Rob Green and Kyle Bartley has left Leeds fragile and low on confidence. New Goal keeper Felix Wieldwald has failed to impress and is currently been kept out of the team by Andy Longegan. Even last seasons cult hero in Pontus Jansson is struggling in form without his solid defensive partner of Kyle Bartley.

With Leeds wanting a top six finish they may need to add to the squad in the January transfer market. However during an online Q&A Orta stated: "I don't believe a lot in the January transfer market.  I prefer to do all our work in the summer market and only use the January market for specific situation, for a problem we need to solve."

Also during his Q&A session Orta declared the club are planning on 'a big surprise from Asia' widely reported to be the proposed signing of Japanese J-League player Yosuke Ideguchi. The Sun newspaper believes the 21-year old may of already signed a pre-contract agreement with the club for his signature in January.

With the fickle nature of football it is easy to swing from being a football genius with a 'weapons grade contacts book' to a disruptive maverick signing dross from sub-standard football leagues. As with Leeds its impossible to predict how the clubs season will unfold. A win against former manager Gary Monk's Middlesbrough at Elland Road on Sunday could easily be the intervention to swing the clubs fortunes.

In Samu Siaz, Orta has managed to unearth an easily Premiership quality player with flair not seen at Leeds for over numerous years. New singing Ezgjan Alioski has also looked a threat and if he can improve on his consistency would be a beneficial asset to the team.  Other new signings perhaps needing more time to settle into English football like Jay-Roy Grot and Pawel Cibicki it is too early to write off the players signed this summer. 

 It will be interesting to see if Leeds do sign Japanese International Yosuke Ideguchi in January as hinted by Orta. If so I hope his impact is more Siaz than Weilderwald