Pre-season friendlies are a notoriously poor barometer of an impending Premiership campaign and Spurs will hope this is the case after they slumped to their fourth pre-season defeat in nine games.
They took the lead through a revitalised Kanoute but two goals, one in each half from Dirk Kuyt, left Santini's men facing a third-place playoff against Partizan Belgrade tomorrow night.
Spurs were without goalkeeper Paul Robinson, attending a family funeral, and midfielder Sean Davis, who remained in London to be with his wife who is undergoing a difficult pregnancy.
Santini claims he will be ready for the 14 August kick-off against Liverpool at White Hart Lane, but does not have much time left to find a solution to some early problems
New Swedish signing Erik Edman was on the bench until the second half but Lens trialist Dagui Bakari looked short of Premiership class and sporting director Frank Arnesen will be weighing up whether to tell the Ivory Coast striker 'thanks, but no thanks' next week.
Pedro Mendez was also unimpressive but may be given time considering he played in the Champions League Final with Porto last season. Finding his best 11 may be Santini's biggest task and his decision to start with the central defensive partnership of Gary Doherty and Goran Bunjevcevic wasn't an instant hit.
On the positive side, there is no doubt Kanoute is out to prove to Santini that he has a future at White Hart Lane. He failed to do it at Lyon and was so upset that Santini ignored his claims for French national selection that he opted to play for Mali instead.
Yet his second goal in as many games demonstrated that Kanoute could yet be the perfect foil for Defoe in the absence of the injured Keane.
Kanoute took full advantage of Michael Brown's clever reverse pass to steer the ball home for the opening goal in the 27th minute. Kuyt levelled on 39 minutes before clinching victory for Ruud Gullit's Dutch side with a neat diving header.
Santini said: "We have played many games and it is difficult because we have many injured players, two others with family problems and they are not here with us. This was a good training session for the players. We have a hard match against Liverpool coming up but I am happy for the players. The pitch was very hard and no good to play good football.
"We play against Cagliari on Saturday and then against Celtic next Tuesday but the only thing on my mind is our first game against Liverpool in our stadium. I am happy we will be ready."
