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Tottenham Hotspur welcomed Watford in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Hotspur Way on Friday which gave a trio of first team players some much-needed minutes.
Spurs took the opportunity to hand a few of Thomas Frank's squad a run-out against the Championship visitors, who now have a new but familiar face in charge in the shape of Javi Gracia after Paulo Pezzolano was sacked with the Hornets in 11th spot in the table.
Watford brought a strong side to Tottenham's Enfield training ground and duly ran out 2-1 winners on the day, but this was more about getting some game time into the legs of players, including summer arrival Randal Kolo Muani. The France international arrived on deadline day in a loan move from PSG and has thus far only made a brief 13-minute substitute appearance from the bench in the Champions League win against Villarreal.
That's because in a training session in the days after, the 26-year-old was involved in a collision with midfielder Pape Matar Sarr, which left him with a dead leg that did not heal quickly and kept him out for the next month.
Now Kolo Muani is back in training though and played 45 minutes in the behind-closed-doors friendly as he stepped up his recovery from the injury. The Frenchman had already been working on his fitness before the injury as he had not played a minute of competitive football since early July at the Club World Cup for Juventus before that Spurs debut and had not been involved in pre-season work with PSG.
The other two first team squad members involved in the friendly against Watford were striker Dane Scarlett, who has been playing for the U21s in recent games, as well as goalkeeper Brandon Austin.
With most of Tottenham's players on international duty, it proved a helpful opportunity to get some fitness into various legs and it could mean with another week of work Kolo Muani might be available to take a spot on Frank's bench for the game against Aston Villa next Sunday at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
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