Who really came out on top after last weekend’s game between Spurs and Manchester United?

Of course, United won the game 3-0 – convincingly enough to stick with the stuttering regime of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Spurs were so abject that fans called for the heads of both chairman Daniel Levy and manager Nuno Espiritu Santo.

A week on, though, things look very different.

Levy sacked Nuno and Spurs now have one of the top six managers in world football; United still have an intern.

Unlike the Manchester club, who did nothing after their own humiliation by Liverpool a week earlier, Spurs pulled off a brilliant, potentially season-changing, coup.

The arrival of Antonio Conte has already been described as sending “a lightning bolt” through the training ground and fan base.

Spurs bosses are not normally recruited from the Italian’s pay grade. And not one that has won five national titles in nine years with three different clubs.

Nor is the club accustomed to operating with a backroom staff of battalion-strength and on a budget that can match the Big Boys – both of which Conte has managed to prise from between Levy’s clenched teeth.

The players know they’ll be driven hard on the training ground, but they are already relishing it. They also know he can make them winners.

As for the fans, it just might be the end of being ‘Spursy’.

Just what they’re making of this at United is anyone’s guess.

They weren’t beaten to the punch; they hadn’t even got their gloves on.

And are still sitting on their stool spouting the haughty: “We were never interested in Conte anyway,’ line.

But any more wobbles, they might have been. And he was interested in United.

Alas for them the top manager ship has sailed.

In midweek, United were poor against Atalanta and needed another Cristiano Ronaldo rescue act to get a face-saving draw they scarcely deserved.

And they go into Saturday’s Manchester derby against a City side that warmed up with a comfortable 4-1 win over Bruges.

City are favourites but not as hot as they usually are in this fixture, having yet to find their customary swagger.

Indeed, for all the hype and zillions spent, this derby cannot escape the inevitable what ifs.

What if City had signed Harry Kane instead of Jack Grealish?

What if United had brought in Conte instead of sticking with Solskjaer?

And what if City had signed Ronaldo?

It’s pretty clear now that City needed Kane more than Grealish. Goals have become a bit of a problem for City: not the total number but their regularity.

They either whack someone four, five or six or don’t score at all as they didn’t in defeats to West Ham and Crystal Palace, and a draw with Southampton.

With all their playmakers – Joao Cancelo got a hattrick of assists against Bruges from left-back (!) – they should be murdering these teams. With Kane they surely would.

Grealish is a Pep Guardiola-type player, a thinking midfielder who can do marvellous things with the ball.

But City are well-stocked in this department and he’s not Andres Iniesta.

He’s not Kane either. He’s more of the same – perhaps over time will prove an upgrade – but at £100m he looks a luxury item.

Still, looking at United’s defence in Italy, City should be able to walk the ball in. Harry Maguire had a shocker and Raphael Varane is out for a month.

Victor Lindelof was missing with a knock so United could be stretched at the back – whatever formula Solskjaer and his triumvirate of coaches configures.

At least Eric Bailly came back to be their best defender in the Champions League.

Nor has the Norwegian settled on his line-up anywhere else.

A winning formula against Spurs was swiftly jettisoned to general bewilderment.

He’s no nearer to solving the Paul Pogba conundrum; United fans must hope the enigma’s enigma is just nearer the exit lounge.

Seeing the lesser-spotted Donny van der Beek and Jadon Sancho on the field in tandem, you wondered if David Attenborough was in the dugout.

Where Pep will overthink things, it looks as if Solskjaer draws the names out of a hat until he has 11 starters.

How different it would have been if Conte had been taking his Old Trafford bow.

United’s hierarchy read too much into the fiery temper stories and not enough into how he took over ailing sides and turned them into champions.

In his biography, I think Therefore I Play, Andrea Pirlo wrote: “He needed only one speech, with many simple words, to conquer both me and Juventus. He had fire running through his veins and he moved like a viper.”

Adds Pirlo: “He told us: ‘This squad, dear boys, is coming off two consecutive seventh-place finishes. It’s crazy. It’s shocking. I am not here for this, so it’s time to stop being so crap…’”

Like The Godfather, after whom he was nicknamed while Italian national coach, he always had the players’ attention.

And in his first season in English football, he transformed Chelsea, who were going nowhere under the second coming of Guus Hiddink, into champions.

He took one look at the squad, turned Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso into wing backs, and had a whole new counter-attacking formation that not even Pep could deal with.

You suspect Pep will have an easier time on Saturday even if Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani renew their partnership upfront.

And if United continue to flatter to deceive while Conte lights the touchpaper for a Spurs revival, that 3-0 defeat will look like an even bigger ‘victory’ for the Londoners with each passing fixture.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.