Jose Mourinho has called for patience with new Tottenham signing Matt Doherty after a difficult debut in their defeat to Everton.
The full-back made his first start since completing a £15million move from Wolves as Tottenham suffered defeat to Everton at home for the first time since 2008.
Doherty showed his attacking threat in the first half, exchanging a neat one-two with Harry Kane, only to see his follow up shot impressively stopped by the outstretched leg of Jordan Pickford.
The 28-year-old was replaced by Tanguy Ndombele after 75 minutes, however, with Moussa Sissoko deputising at right-back.
Speaking after the game, Mourinho insisted his players had struggled after a minimal pre-season following just a seven-week gap between the start of this season and the end of last.
"The players who didn't have pre-season, we don't have now the possibility to give them a pre-season but we have a lot of matches now to play consecutively," Mourinho said in his post-match press conference.
"We have to use these matches, not just to win them and the knockout ones are obviously decisive ones with everything decided in 120 minutes or even penalties, and try to use this to improve the form of some players because some of them were really in trouble.
"You can look to Doherty, a player who is normally in incredible condition. He didn't have pre-season. He went direct from holidays to national team matches. No pre-season at all.
"Direct and not one single training session, direct from holidays to national team and he played two consecutive matches and today he was not Matt Doherty like he normally is."
Mourinho also confirmed that there were numerous positive tests for coronavirus throughout the squad, which he says disrupted their pre-season.
The three-time Premier League winner insisted he expected more from his team regardless.
"We had cases of positive COVID-19," he added. "We're not going to say who. We had players in quarantine due to proximity to players with COVID.
"We had a player in quarantine after going on holiday. We had played on international duty.
"It was a difficult pre-season and I couldn't expect them to be sharp and agile but I was expecting more from them individually and as a team."
