MAURICIO Pochettino has blasted the Premier League for starting a week earlier than the rest of Europe's top tiers - a move he feels will severely impact his Tottenham Hotspur side.

Both La Liga and Serie A start a week later than the Premier League's August 4 kick-off, allowing players more time to recover from the exertions of a World Cup summer.

Spurs had a host of names playing in the latter stages in Russia, with Belgium, England and France all boasting Tottenham players in their ranks.

Pochettino has, therefore, had to work with a skeleton squad during a truncated pre-season and believes this will have an adverse impact on Spurs' start to the campaign.

He said: "The players need to rest, the players need a period to recover after more than 10 months of competition.

"I am not going to complain about that and I understand they need 20 or 21 days to be away from football. But of course that is a massive disadvantage.

"I need to adapt to what the Premier League propose. We cannot delete the start of the Premier League. We start earlier than other leagues and countries.

"There is nothing I can do. I think all the clubs are going to be in similar condition - some with more problems than others. That is a reality we cannot change."

Spurs' latest pre-season encounter proved to be a productive one for Pochettino's men as they eased to a 4-1 win over Roma in the International Champions Cup.

Roma came out of the blocks flying and were ahead within three minutes of kick-off thanks to Patrick Schick's strike.

However, a rapid brace from Fernando Llorente turned the game around before the 20 minute mark and Lucas Moura added two more ahead of the break to complete the scoring.

Tottenham's next friendly game comes in the form of a game against Barcelona in the early hours of Sunday morning.