Tottenham head coach Ange Postecoglou has heaped praise on Manchester City ahead of their meeting on Wednesday night.
The Spurs boss has already overcome the Premier League champions twice this season, once in the League Cup and again at the Etihad in November.
But the Australian is well aware of the threat Pep Guardiola’s side poses, particularly when they are up against it.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, Postecoglou said: “Yeah, look it is always a challenge when you play City and they challenge you in ways other clubs don’t in terms of their football.
“I know for them they are going through a rough trot, but their football is still a real challenge to play against but it’s a great challenge. It’s what you want and you want to measure yourself.
“They’ll come here and try play, be dominant on the ball and we want to be dominant, but you know against Man City you can’t be and it’s impossible to be dominant in all facets.
“You’re always looking forward to the challenge. Man City are an outstanding football club, great manager, still got great footballers and still play really challenging football to any opponent.
“We’ve enjoyed our games against them, whether that was this year or last year. They’re going to try and win, they’re going to try and play expansively and we are going to try and do the same. It’s going to be a good test for us.”
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A win would mark four in a row in the Premier League for Spurs, their best run of form all season.
They have lifted themselves away from the bottom six in recent weeks and up to 12th, albeit still a long way off the European places.
But another win, against City again, could lift the mood even more, especially with the likes of Micky van de Ven, Cristiano Romero and Dominic Solanke all returning from injury next week.
He added: “Everybody is dismissing that we lost two cup games in there as well so it is not exactly three in a row. We understand there was a disappointment in there as well.
“I think the last couple of games in particular have certainly given us encouragement in terms of just being able to re-energise the group. Whether that is the guys who worked really hard through that period where we were really challenged or the guys coming back in.
“There is just a real good energy around it. The guys who missed out have been really keen to contribute and you have seen the enthusiasm that, Vicario, Brennan at the weekend, Maddison coming back in, Destiny, these guys have bought.
“It has helped the rest of the group. I think we have benefitted from that with the two weeks we have had of no midweek games. So all of those things and then you get two wins which makes people feel good and is something for us to build on.”