There was a revealing sight at Tottenham's Chigwell training complex this week as they prepared for the most important match of their season. There, as ever, was George Graham, cajoling, demonstrating, flicking passes to his squad. But surrounding him were not his beloved defenders but the forward players. It was a sign, surely, of how far Spurs have come.

As, emphatically, is their presence in the League Cup final against Leicester City tomorrow, with the prospect of a return to Wembley in the FA Cup. Such a scenario seemed laughable six months ago as Christian Gross barked "verk harder" at despondent, half-hearted players preparing for another season of insignificance and on the brink of revolt.

Graham believes he crammed 10 years of improvement into three seasons at Millwall. At White Hart Lane he seems to have achieved much the same in little more than three months. But then he inevitably has a headstart. At Tottenham the revival began the moment in October his appointment was announced.

As the rejuvenated Tottenham goalkeeper Ian Walker says: "Everyone knew George's reputation beforehand. There was a bit of fear there. We knew we would have to knuckle down otherwise we would not stay at the club." Falling out of favour with Gross was one thing. Not rated by Graham? Everyone in football takes notice of that.

Clearly, Graham's discipline was desperately needed. Gross never understood his players' mentality nor enjoyed their respect. Why work for a Swiss who has a more limited grasp of English than Gazza and travels not by limousine or Mercedes but by Tube? Remarkably, Tottenham chose not to perform. Footballers do not take kindly to the unknown.

With Graham they knew precisely what they were getting: The feeling, quite simply, was that they were replacing a loser with a winner. The aura had landed.

"George has this presence about him," Darren Anderton says. "That is mainly down to respect. A lot of us haven't played in cup finals. He has and he's won leagues, so you take in what he says because it makes sense."

Since his arrival from Leeds United Graham has overseen a 16-match unbeaten run, the club's best sequence for 17 years. Confidence has returned; a collection of (usually injured) individuals are playing as a team, though naturally they have no choice. "We spend a lot of time working on the pattern of play," says Anderton. "If you don't do what he wants you won't be picked. It's as simple as that." Where the hands-out-of-pockets variety of discipline preferred by Gross provoked only derision, Graham has engendered a new spirit. As he acknowledges, the power wielded by the players in the wake of Bosman means the strength of a manager's personality is even more important in winning their respect.

Les Ferdinand, one of Gross's biggest critics, is now working harder and in more areas of the field than he did. Yet it is the way in which David Ginola has become more of a team player without losing his individuality which is probably Graham's biggest success with Spurs so far.

Ginola, like everyone, has clear duties. Just as Walker is instructed where to aim his goalkicks, so Ginola knows to cut inside and shoot or pass, or go outside and cross. Pele, as Graham reminded him, did the simple things for all but a few seconds of a match, yet it was those flashes of brilliance everyone remembered. Ginola's mesmerising goal at Barnsley was a case in point.

"George had a message for every position, even for me," Ginola says. "A message for the strikers and defenders to get tight together and things here are good." The defensive improvement has been marked, though hardly remarkable. Graham always did believe in getting the defence right before starting to think about playing attractive attacking football and since he became manager Tottenham have conceded 16 goals in 22 Premiership matches, having begun the season by letting in 18 in seven.

As ever Graham's philosophy is astonishingly simple. At Arsenal he asked his defenders to imagine they were linked by a rope, so they moved always as a unit (and often with an arm in the air). Spurs fans have long since felt their back-line was linked by string, but only in the sense of producing a three-legged race effect.

Endless training routines have not only lifted a weight off the considerable shoulders of Sol Campbell but ended Ramon Vega's days as a hate figure, resurrected Justin Edinburgh's career and made Stephen Carr arguably the Premiership's best uncapped full-back.

"Every day he teaches us more about how to work together collectively rather than as individuals," says Vega. "He explains how we can link more effectively with the midfield and all that has made a huge difference." The midfield likewise has learned how to link with the defence. It is no coincidence that Les Ferdinand refers to the "back eight". Significantly, in place of the flimsy Stephen Clemence and Moussa Saib have come the cup-tied Tim Sherwood and Steffen Freund. Suddenly, the club's first honour for eight years is looming.

"What George Graham has done is make Tottenham much better without the ball," says the director of football David Pleat. "They understand now the defensive shape they need when they lose the ball. They are far better at regaining the ball, at hassling, at reducing the other team to limited attempts on goal."

This final should offer an intriguing gauge of how far Spurs have come. Graham's first match in charge ended in a 2-1 defeat at Filbert Street on a night of high emotion when it seemed Leicester's manager Martin O'Neill might still step into the seat Graham had vacated at Elland Road. "Martin please stay" the banners cried. "George thanks for coming" should be on view in the Spurs end at Wembley.

For die-hard Tottenham fans Graham's appointment was on a par with granting the freedom of Atlanta to William Tecumseh Sherman. But the hatred generated by his Arsenal links has dissipated as the trophy-collecting hobby he began at Highbury shows signs of a repeat.

Spurs, as Edinburgh says, is unrecognisable. "He's got rid of a lot of the sloppiness, the lateness," explains the only survivor from the team who won the 1991 FA Cup. "The training has a much higher tempo. Everything is done to focus on the next game." The Scot has proved not only a leader but a healer. The great injury plague of White Hart Pain is all but gone, the remedies being found in lengthy physiotherapy and in the rush-hour traffic.

The wounded must be in at 10 a.m. and generally find their cars limping home with the working world in the evening. "I think he likes us to get caught in the traffic," Ferdinand says, though Ginola sees a simpler explanation: "When you are in a bad mood in the dressing-room you don't want to work properly, you don't stretch properly and you become injured very quickly."

Only two players will be absent through injury tomorrow as Spurs seek to confirm their re-emergence as a genuine force. The last time they beat Leicester at Wembley, in 1961, they completed the 20th century's first Double. For Graham a victory this time would be a reminder of the single-mindedness which continues to make him a winner.

The last words on what has transformed Spurs belong to Graham himself. The secret of his success? "I haven't got enough time to tell you that," he says. "It would take all afternoon." A little clue, perhaps? "I think journalists should look at the man behind the team. Invariably he is the answer." As we suspected all along.