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Football London
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Sport
Alasdair Gold

Tottenham's first Korea training session: Who trained, who didn't, Perisic injury and Lenglet

Tottenham's pre-season tour of South Korea is brought to you in association with Nord VPN, sponsors of football.london's coverage.

The Tottenham Hotspur players began their pre-season trip to South Korea with their first training session on Sunday evening.

Tottenham's double training sessions will be held every morning and evening and the players had barely stepped off of their long flight to Seoul before they were whisked away to the Goyang Stadium, north of Incheon International Airport. The plan was that if the Spurs players got straight out and started training and later slept well that evening then jet lag - with Korea eight hours ahead of UK time - might be less of an issue.

Here is what we noticed from that first session held by Antonio Conte and his coaches in Goyang:

READ MORE: Levy meeting with Conte, Lucas fireworks and 11 things we learned from new Tottenham documentary

The new signings

Sunday's session took the usual form of a split between stretching drills, fitness work, ball and then small-sided games with small nets.

Almost all of the new Tottenham signings were all in action to varying degrees in the 34 degree heat in the first session. Yves Bissouma, Fraser Forster and Richarlison all took part in both the fitness and ball work but Ivan Perisic just the fitness work as he continues to recover from the calf injury suffered in his last game for Inter in May.

Nineteen-year-old Papar Matar Sarr was also getting his first experience of Spurs life, having joined last summer from Metz but remained at the Ligue 1 club on loan for the season, while Josh Keeley, also 19, arrived this summer from St Patrick's Athletic and the Republic of Ireland U19 keeper was training with Hugo Lloris, Forster and Brandon Austin with goalkeeping coach Marco Savorani.

There was one new signing missing though.

Who missed out

There was no Clement Lenglet as the Frenchman, on loan from Barcelona, arrived at the club on Friday as the club's fifth summer signing and too late to receive a visa and he will remain training at Hotspur Way this week.

Joe Rodon missed out on the tour through illness, discovered on the day of departure, while Giovani Lo Celso, Tanguy Ndombele, Sergio Reguilon and Harry Winks, will continue their pre-season preparations back in England at the training ground as the club expects them to move on this summer.

Youngsters Alfie Devine and Dane Scarlett were given further time off following their recent triumph at the UEFA European U19 Championships.

Those returning from injury

It was good to see plenty of Tottenham players back in action following their injuries last season. Oliver Skipp, Matt Doherty and Japhet Tanganga all had their campaigns ended prematurely by injuries, the former a pelvic one and the latter two knee problems, but the trio were all fully involved in both fitness and the game scenarios with the ball.

Bissouma picked up an injury on international duty during the summer but was fully involved in training on Sunday, although as mentioned above, Perisic is still in his final stages of fitness work before he can get back to ball work.

Matt Doherty's new look

One man had a slightly new look at training with Matt Doherty sporting a goatee that had drawn plenty of discussion from his team-mates on the flight over.

In a video released by Spurs from the team's flight from Heathrow Airport to Seoul, Eric Dier was shown calling upon others to rate the new pencil-thin beard on the Republic of Ireland international's face.

Dier himself handed him a 7.6 although Forster delivered a no-nonsense rating of minus two. Harry Kane gave Doherty a 5.5, although he admitted to being generous because the duo are friends, while Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg dished out a rating of six, adding that it had potential. Bryan Gil went high with a 7.8, which drew applause from Dier but had Hojbjerg suggesting the young Spaniard was jet lagged.

The youngsters

Conte wanted to inform the younger players late in the process when it came to whether they were in his Korea squad, in order to keep them on their toes during training at Hotspur Way in the week.

Summer tours normally have an abundance of young players involved but with the large first team squad Spurs have right now and the lack of absent internationals, there were less spare seats on the plane.

Five young players were involved in training on Sunday. Harvey White, 20, is a relatively old hand now with tour experience and having been part of the first team squad throughout last season under Conte. Troy Parrott and Malachi Fagan-Walcott, also both 20, have made their Tottenham debuts in recent seasons and Parrott experienced an Asian tour in 2019 when the club played in Singapore and Shanghai.

However, teenagers Charlie Sayers and Keeley have certainly been thrust into the experience. Sayers only turned 18 in March and joined Spurs for an undisclosed fee in December after breaking into the first team at National League side Southend United. The teenager can play as a centre-back or left-back and was drafted into the tour squad at the weekend as a late replacement for Rodon.

Technically a youngster as he's only 19, Sarr is getting his first experience of life away with his new team and with his basic grasp of English will be leaning on the likes of Lloris and Ryan Sessegnon, who speaks fluent French, to help him along.

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