Edinburgh Festival disrupts Tottenham preparations

Tottenham's plans for tomorrow night's Europa League play-off with Hearts have been disrupted by the Edinburgh Festival.

Additional visitors to the Scottish capital during August means Spurs cannot be accommodated in a suitable hotel, so they are staying 50 miles further north in St Andrews.

Harry Redknapp's men will train at their Chigwell base today and forego the opportunity to see Tynecastle tonight before tackling Hearts in the play-off first leg tomorrow.

Spurs first-team coach Joe Jordan said in a number of Scottish newspapers: "It's been a problem with our preparation, but we'll get around it.

"We would have preferred to stay in Edinburgh, but we're a long way away from it. We're up at St Andrews.

"We would have liked to have been closer on the day of the game so our journey there would have been a lot shorter."

The fixture will be Spurs' first competitive match of the season, with their Barclays Premier League opener with Manchester United following on Monday.

But Jordan expects Redknapp to select a strong team to play Hearts, rather than rest players for the Old Trafford clash.

Former Hearts boss Jordan added: "I don't think that will ever enter the manager's head.

"He knows the difficulty of this game and knows the danger of the opposition."