Former Tottenham boss Andre Villas-Boas has spoken of the challenge managers go through when trying to bring in players.

The Portuguese head coach has spoken of a time when he wanted to bring Joao Moutinho to Spurs.

However, he was told in the summer of 2012 - six years before Moutinho signed for Wolves - that his target was not impressive enough to sporting director Franco Baldini.

“The most evident case I had was when I was at Tottenham and I wanted to sign Joao Moutinho and he was sitting sixth on the list compiled by data people," he said at Web Summit in Lisbon.

“The first on the list was Dembele, we ended up signing him and we almost ended up signing Moutinho as well, but we lost it against the clock on the last day of the transfer window.

“But it drained me emotionally to the point where, here was a guy that the data was not showing all that he represented from the coach's perspective, which is a player that knows your leadership, a player that knows your style, adaptability to your style.

“This can be quantified, but it must be done in the view of a coach and not a single view.

“This was the problem in the beginning and we made massive, massive arguments in the beginning because of this with Moutinho.

“We signed Dembele but missed out on Moutinho and it was unfortunate because we were going to build up a very strong midfield.

“This is precisely where you have to have that balance to understand, what is your coaching philosophy and how it should be integrated into the data that has been provided to you."