Heading in the right direction, UP

Football today is a squad game. No longer can you simply play the same players every week, the demands are greater than they were years ago when a settled team was the norm.

Sports science now tells us that it takes the body 48 hours to fully recover from a game which if you are playing Thursday evening and Sunday is a problem.

The concept of a young settled side staying together, learning a system together and increasing success, thus the desire to stay is a sound one. But it is a squad that needs to be built to stay together, rather than a team with a supporting cast.

While some players like Ryan Mason were classed as squad players, you wouldn't suggests that Victor Wanyama or Moussa Sissoko were just squad players, but an essential pert of the rotation policy. It is important in any rotation that players spend time together on the pitch to build understanding. The greater the time spent, the greater the understanding and thus greater performance.

That was my reasoning when suggesting we needed a young side who stay together and develop together and it is a model that is showing signs of being the right one. It is still early days of course and we haven't actually won anything yet, but the signs are positive.

We seem to be a better side this season than we were last season and the performance against Manchester City was perhaps one of the best we have seen from a Spurs side in quite a while. Beating a top side is one thing, but to comprehensively outplay them is quite another.

Now we look for consistency. The players have revealed to themselves what they are capable of and that has to be the motivation going forward. They have to be reminded what they are capable of and that that is the expected level of performance. I doubt that will happen overnight, but it is a suggestion we are still heading in the right direction, up.

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