Spurs vs Shakhtar Donetsk: More intelligence required

A few things came out of the Spurs vs Shakhtar Donetsk game for me.

A training game, a fitness game I know but you can still pick things up from it, indeed, as a coach you should.

Firstly Son is still looking out of sorts and I'm not at all convinced our new system will suit him. Can he adapt? 

Yes I think he can and I think when his confidence returns he'll contribute in front of goal, but he came off disappointed he hadn't scored or really had much opportunity.

He looked rather down.

The other aspect to work on was in the head. On several occasions we had players running forward, but they aren't running intelligently.

They are simply running without a thought as to how the ball will reach them and thus oin several occasions the ball was behind them or they had to stop in their tracks and take time to regain control.

I have talked about vision training before and at times players need a greater vision of the options, need a better reading of the game to be more effective in these situations.

Running off the ball to simply take defenders out of the game, that's a different matter but these were not those situations and they can be attack-stopping moments.

The goal we conceded was left centre-back slot and once again players coming in behind the right-back caused us a problem, but fortunately for us it was offside and the player missed the goal.

Onto the more positive and Sarr looks to be developing under a coach who develops youngsters. He'll be a better player than Skipp and quite quickly too.

Hojbjerg playing the whole game suggests his sale might not go through. Kane scores four in possibly his last game with a £110m deal with Bayern Munich being lined up.

Solomon continues to look the part, Kulusevski looked more intent on getting his shots on target than in the net but does seem to be back in form.

Maddison fits in nicely, Vicario still hasn't convinced, Udogie looks the par and uses his body well, our full-backs were midfielders operating in the channels, as expected, stopping sides attacking us through the middle.

A nice finish for Dane Scarlett will do his confidence a power of good. Ben Davies in particular was delighted for him.

A satisfying run-out, onto the next game with a different XI?

Enjoy your day

COYS