On the opening day of the 2003-04 Premier League season, three recently departed Tottenham Hotspur players scored for their new clubs. The bright starts that Les Ferdinand (Leicester City), Steffen Iversen (Wolverhampton Wanderers) and Teddy Sheringham (Portsmouth) made did little to lift the mood of supporters disappointed by Spurs' 1-0 defeat to Birmingham City, especially as the club's two new strikers—Helder Postiga and Bobby Zamora—did not score.
Nacer Chadli's bright beginning to life at West Bromwich Albion here in the present has not stung quite like those starts of the other ex-Spurs men.