It is less than a fortnight until the Ange Postecoglou era officially begins at Tottenham Hotspur and the players return for pre-season training.
The 57-year-old officially begins work at the north London club on July 1 following his move from Celtic, although the Australian has already been involved in discussions about the transfer window and new season, including a temporary pause to his holiday to spend the day in various meetings at Tottenham's Hotspur Way training complex.
Pre-season training for the club's non-international players often begins on the first Monday of July, but football.london understands that some players will return two days earlier this time on Saturday July 1, Postecoglou's first official day of work at Spurs. The first day or two of pre-season is normally spent carrying out fitness tests on the players to check on their status following their time off.
Then they will launch into the tough work of a Postecoglou pre-season to prepare them for what he describes as 'relentless' training and match displays during the campaign. Training during a season is 60-70 minutes of non-stop work and drills on the pitch but the summer is expected to be even tougher as the new head coach gets the players into the shape required to play his high energy, non-stop style of attacking and pressing football.
football.london broke the news earlier this month that Ryan Mason would be remaining at the club to take his place among Postecoglou's coaching staff and former Leicester City assistant manager Chris Davies is expected to join him.
The early players back will be a mixture of Spurs' non-internationals and development squad players as Postecoglou takes a closer look at some of the younger players he can work with as well as a few more established players who missed out on international duty this summer.
READ MORE: James Maddison and Spurs' plans to help transform Postecoglou's midfield
The early returnees will include Yves Bissouma, Eric Dier, Pedro Porro, Emerson Royal, Djed Spence, Bryan Gil, Ryan Sessegnon, Fraser Forster, Japhet Tanganga, Harvey White, Brandon Austin and Alfie Whiteman as well as other non-international loan players including Harry Winks, Sergio Reguilon and Tanguy Ndombele. The injured Rodrigo Bentancur is likely to also be dropping in over the course of the summer as part of his rehabilitation.
Everyone else is on international duty and are set to return from July 12 but some could well choose to return early in order to impress the new boss and start taking on his very different system and instructions as quickly as possible. Everyone will be back in time for the summer tour to Perth, Bangkok and Singapore, although two will cut it close.
Destiny Udogie and Oliver Skipp are likely to be the latest returnees to the group as they both are taking part in the European U21 Championships with Italy and England respectively with the group stages in late June. Should either reach the final then that takes place on July 8, which is only a week before Postecoglou's squad will depart for their tour of Australia and Asia.
Who stays and who goes at Spurs this summer? Have your say...
