I KNOW it doesn't pay to get too concerned about losing pre-season friendlies, but getting thumped 4-1 is never easy to swallow.

Last night Villarreal put a pretty strong-looking Spurs side to the sword in a 4-1 thrashing, due in no small part to their diminutive Italian-American-whatever striker Giuseppe Rossi.

The wee net-botherer's hat-trick put the game beyond Spurs and it was a little worrying to see our senior players looking so sluggish.

Wholesale changes were made at half-time and the subsequent performance was a great improvement, but the game was already lost long before the 90 minutes were up.

By Monday this will have all been forgotten but surely these are the kinds of sides we need to beat if we're going to give a good account of ourselves in Europe next season.

The side take on Portuguese outfit Benfica on Tuesday and hopefully they can net a few goals to get the confidence levels up as the new season fast approaches.

Meanwhile, Harry has defended his pursuit of Scott Parker, after the West Ham bosses had a bit of a paddy about our manager trying to 'unsettle' the midfield enforcer.

Well boo-hoo. These are grown men we're talking about here, not children.

Surely we aren't to believe that a grown man that trousers millions of pounds each year for playing a sport he loves, who is capable of stepping out in front of thousands sweaty, beery football fans baying for his blood each week, could be given sleepless nights by another, well-respected manager expressing how much he'd like to bring him to his club.

Professional footballers are not nervous wrecks, or fragile individuals whose self-assurance plummets at the merest knock.

The chairman of that particular club should stop moaning about Harry's conduct and concentrate on keeping all those promises they set out to fans when they first rode up in their chauffeur-driven Rolls Royces.