In terms of how to win friends and influence people at Tottenham, getting sent off for two ill-advised fouls against West Ham isn’t exactly the greatest of starts.
Yet that’s how Serge Aurier marked his full Premier League debut back in September after Spurs spent £23million to sign him from Paris Saint-Germain.
Manager Mauricio Pochettino must have shared the worst fears of Spurs fans that Aurier might turn out to be a pretty expensive liability. Quite a few of his opening performances were played on a knife-edge.
Fast-forward to the present and Aurier does finally seem to have won Pochettino’s trust and, while he still has moments that make you wince, the Ivorian right-back is looking more like the player Spurs hoped they’d bought.