Villas-Boas- Well be fine

Spurs host their London rivals in the day's early kick-off, meaning they trained together on Friday for the first time since several members of the squad travelled around the world to represent their national teams.

But Villas-Boas does not anticipate any international hang-over from his squad ahead of the fixture against his former club. He said: "I certainly don't expect any problems. Lots of players have recovery sessions as normal."

He continued: "We have left them on very, very light sessions in the gym with the medical department. So we don't expect any kind of problems at the moment, everyone is feeling okay."

"We are still at the beginning of the league, the players haven't accumulated so much fatigue throughout the season for that to happen. We have enough time to recover the players. We should be fresh and fine and powerful in the same way."

England's performance in their rescheduled match against Poland, in which they were lucky to secure a 1-1 draw, came under the spotlight when it was revealed the players had taken both caffeine pills and sleeping tablets due to the postponement.

Villas-Boas feels the use of such supplements aids the mental preparation of a player, rather than the physical aspect and does not believe it had any bearing on the result in Warsaw.

He explained: "In the end it's more a question of tricking the mind rather than the actual effect of any kind of sleeping tablet or caffeine. That's the way I see it.

"Certainly we use vitamins, we have to take care of players, we use drinks, energetic drinks for players, we use all kinds of situations, like any other team in the world.

"I don't think it was because of that England got the result they got. I think in the end it's a good point away anyway, because it's never easy to play against Poland, in their stadium, in those conditions, against a team that has players of tremendous talent too."

Source: PA

Source: PA