Mauricio Pochettino has admitted he has little to do in terms of motivating his Tottenham Hotspur players for Saturday's north London derby against Arsenal.

Spurs have lost back to back games in the Premier League, going down at Burnley and Chelsea, to give the chasing pack hope they can be pulled down into the battle for a top four spot.




If Arsenal beat Spurs at Wembley on Saturday they would move to within one point of Pochettino's men, who sit in third, and spark worries over three defeats in a row for the hosts.

Pochettino feels he has little to do in terms of motivating his players for the derby clash, but is expecting a tough game, not least due to his respect for Arsenal boss Unai Emery.
 


"Of course to motivate for this type of game is an easy job. We don’t need to motivate them. We know very well what it means to play against Arsenal", Pochettino told a press conference.

"We know that we’re going to be very motivated and we’ll have a team in front that is very motivated too.
 

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"We’ve played twice against them this season. One Premier League game at the Emirates that we lost, another in the Carabao Cup that we won.

"Of course it’s going to be tough, the third game of the season against Arsenal. They have very good players, they are doing a very good job.

"Unai Emery is a great manager, I know him very well. Of course it’s going to be tough.

"Always a derby is tough, after my experience here in nearly five years every time that we played against Arsenal it was a very tough game", the Tottenham manager added.

Spurs have not lost against Arsenal when boasting home advantage since a 2015 League Cup defeat.

Arsenal head into the derby in good form however, having taken 15 points from their last six Premier League matches, a record identical to Manchester City and one point better off than a resurgent Manchester United.