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If he didn't know it already, Jose Mourinho will now be well aware of the task ahead of him at Tottenham Hotspur.

Many of the problems Mauricio Pochettino was facing in his final months have not suddenly vanished and his Portuguese successor is doscivering that many of them have simply laid in wait for him.

The new Spurs head coach admitted to football.london on Wednesday night that he needs more time, and specifically training sessions, to get his ideas, principles and demands across.

"Working [is the way to fix it all], but I'm not doing a lot of that work," said Mourinho. "You cannot work on intensity when you are permanently playing matches every two to three days.

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"You can work on other things, you can work on principles of play, you work on tactical positioning, but intensity, aggression is something you cannot work on.

"How can I work on these items of the game when I have to play Saturday again? I just can't do it.

"So it has to be in time and try to influence the profile of the players and their concentration levels too."

So what exactly does Mourinho need to work on in the weeks ahead, particularly with his first full week of training with the players coming after the match at Wolves and ahead of another game against an old team, Chelsea.

Here are the five things we reckon Mourinho will look to fix in the short term and for the long term.

Figuring out the defensive problems and deciding on the future

Tottenham's defense is as brittle as it has been at any point in 2019 and were it not for Paulo Gazzaniga and some wayward United shooting, they could have been submerged under a deluge of goals at Old Trafford.

Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen are both keen to renew their contracts at the club, but the questions over whether the Belgian duo's best years are behind them will remain for now.

Former club record signing Davinson Sanchez is seen as the future of the Spurs defence, but his displays and confidence have been affected by the unsettled nature of the backline and he is making silly mistakes.

The Colombian was furious and inconsolable at the final whistle, even Mourinho's pat on the back not preventing an angry tirade into the night sky once he stood alone again on the pitch. After the early goal conceded Sanchez and Harry Winks had exchanged angry words as both blamed each other.

The full-backs continue to be an issue. Serge Aurier's inconsistency was in full effect once again at Old Trafford and meant Moussa Sissoko spent most of the game leaving the centre of the pitch to cover for the Ivorian.

Vertonghen fits the Mourinho system as a left-back who can tuck inside. The new head coach has suggested that Ryan Sessegnon could be the long term answer in the role but not right now. The teenager can't even get in his matchday squads let alone try to fight for a position in the starting XI.

Mourinho has said he is happy with the squad and doesn't want January transfers. If that is the case then he needs to decide whether Alderweireld and Vertonghen can continue to be the spine of his defence going forward and whether Aurier is the man he can trust week in, week out or whether Juan Foyth and Japhet Tanganga need to start getting more game time.

(Image: Tottenham Hotspur FC/Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images)

Solving the Lucas Moura riddle

Lucas Moura has the potential to be a top player for Tottenham Hotspur but Mourinho needs to figure out exactly how to get it out of him.

The Brazilian was excitedly saying last week that the new head coach's arrival meant he could now play in his favoured winger role, rather than as a makeshift forward.

The problem is, and it's one that Pochettino found early on, Lucas does not fulfil the basic requirements of a winger.

He does not run towards the byline and he rarely crosses the ball or look to create chances for others. He can do it - the assist for Harry Kane against Olympiacos proved that - but he just doesn't look to do it much at all.

This season he has just one assist in the Premier League to his name and that assist in Champions League.

Last season he managed just one in the Premier League and one in the FA Cup, while his first campaign brought just one in the league, on the final day against Leicester, and three in the FA Cup, two of those against Rochdale.

Despite his claims that he's not as comfortable as a striker, that's where Lucas' biggest successes have come at Tottenham, not least those memorable goals in Europe, particularly that amazing night in Amsterdam.

Lucas is a head down, running forward player. That means he often surges towards goal rather than out wide and sometimes runs into the same spaces as those Harry Kane likes to operate in.

The Brazilian will not want to be a super sub, someone brought on to bully tired defences, but he needs to prove that he can impact matches that he starts just as much as those he enters later on.

In his Players' Tribune piece this week, former Spurs player Andros Townsend admitted he often finds it strange that his 2013/14 season is held in such high regard. As he points out, he scored just one goal and recorded zero assists in that campaign.

Yet as he says, sometimes the excitement is what people remember, the prospect of what can happen when a speedy, skilful winger gets on the ball.

Lucas has plenty of that, he's all about what might be when he gets on the ball, but Mourinho needs to work out how to make what might be into what is.

He needs more nights like the one in Amsterdam out of him and perhaps even more importantly needs to get him providing for his team-mates if he wants to be a winger.

(Image: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Integrating the new boys again

The biggest fear with Mourinho so far among the Tottenham fans is the seemingly complete lack of interest in involving the expensive trio of summer signings.

In all, Tanguy Ndombele, Giovani Lo Celso and Ryan Sessegnon could end up costing Spurs £135m, if the Argentine is bought this summer.

Yet that investment is sitting either on the bench or out of the squad right now.

In Mourinho's eyes, he's got 25 new signings to work with so there's less immediate rush to bed in three young players who have limited experience of the Premier League.

However, what he is also finding out, or will do, is that the whole point of the trio was to breathe fresh life into a stagnant squad.

Ndombele brings the drive from midfield, Lo Celso the creativity and workrate in both attacking and deeper roles and Sessegnon the pace and youthful exuberance out wide and eventually at left-back.

All three players must be wondering what they've signed up for right now. All three were courted by Pochettino, with sweet nothings whispered into their ears to join the club, and then the Argentine was suddenly gone.

Despite Mourinho telling football.london that the trio have his trust, that they are all 'good buys' and they just have to adapt to the English game, there is certainly an element of the former.

Ndombele and Lo Celso had really started to impress under Pochettino, albeit the latter in only his first two starts, and it seems a waste to have taken away all the momentum they had started to build.

The fans will continue to grow frustrated so long as Christian Eriksen is chosen ahead of them, with his desire to leave the club and his woeful form.

The trio are the future of Tottenham Hotspur, something Mourinho has admitted on numerous occasions is his priority, so he needs to give them the chance to take the club on.

(Image: Tom Purslow/Manchester United via Getty Images)

Settling on a midfield and finding the best role for Winks

The Mourinho way, spelt out on the day of his first match, is a holding midfielder in the centre of the park and a 'passer' beside him.

The Spurs boss must work out exactly who will form that duo going forward.

Mourinho's first names on the team sheet are not set right now, other than perhaps Aurier, Alderweireld, Son, Alli and Kane.

Eric Dier looked to be one of those names, and could still be, as Tottenham do not really have another holding midfielder since Victor Wanyama knee problems robbed the club of the Kenyan destroyer who shone so brightly in his first season in north London.

Wednesday night proved once again that the Harry Winks and Moussa Sissoko partnership doesn't work. Neither really fit either of the roles Mourinho has set for his central midfielders.

Both thrive in a three man midfield but in the Mourinho era, Winks in particular is going to have to work out exactly what kind of midfielder he can be.

He has modelled himself somewhat in Mousa Dembele, with his twists, turns and simple passing but also has the Belgian's downside of not really affecting the game at all in the opposition half.

Winks isn't strong enough or good enough in the tackle to be a holding midfielder and he doesn't contribute assists or goals to the party.

He's got plenty of potential though and is a young midfielder who has bossed some of Europe's best midfields in the Champions League in recent seasons. Mourinho needs to work out how to get the very best of him.

It could be that Ndombele or Lo Celso fit the role of the passer in the centre of midfield. Mourinho also said he is learning more and more about Oliver Skipp each day and don't rule out the teenager being considered for the role in the future.

The lack of a trusted midfield pairing has been at the core of Tottenham's problems this season and Mourinho needs to fix it quickly to build some solid foundations.

Feed Harry Kane

Harry Kane has scored three goals in the four matches of the Mourinho era but that's perhaps papering over the lack of service he's still receiving this season.

Mourinho has worked his magic with Dele Alli but Kane isn't quite feeling the benefits yet. If anything it's Dele who is finding himself in the positions Kane would love to be and scoring the goals.

Part of it is that Kane has a slightly different, battering ram role under Mourinho, similar to how Drogba and Lukaku operated under the Portuguese boss.

Partly it's also because Kane knows he has more to his game than that and when he goes for long periods without the ball he begins to drift deeper and deeper into more of a number 10 playmaker role in order to seek it out.

That in itself leaves Spurs short up front and with a bunch of bodies clustered and getting in each other's way in the attacking midfield areas.

Kane is made to score goals. He can spray wonderful crossfield passes, curl terrific crosses into the box but ultimately every fibre of his being is constructed to put that ball into the back of the net.

Mourinho has a world class striker on his hands and now he's helped fix Dele, he needs to turn his attentions to getting the best out of Kane.

The 26-year-old is reaching the period of his career when he needs to be sure that trophies are on the way.

Mourinho usually guarantees that but in Tottenham he has a very different project on his hands.

Kane needs to feel he's crucial to the capture of that first piece of silverware in decades and that he can score the goals to put him up among Messi and Ronaldo again in terms of his strike rate.

Mourinho has a top drawer striker at his disposal, now he just needs to make sure he's fed, not fed up.