Tottenham made a perfect start to their Europa League campaign with a 3-0 win over LASK on Thursday despite taking to the field with a much-changed side.
Attentions now turn to a crucial match against Burnley on Monday night as the Lilywhites try to put the late collapse against West Ham behind them and go in search of three points.
Some might view Turf Moor as a favourable away trip of late given how poorly the Claretts have started the season.
Sean Dyche’s men currently sit in the relegation zone with just one point from their first four matches but Jose Mourinho asserted that their start to the season does not reflect the quality that they have at their disposal.
The Spurs boss confidently backed Burnley to comfortably avoid relegation this season despite their poor start.
He told Football.London: “You will feel how strong they are by March or April when lots of teams will be fighting for relegation, and they will be already safe.
“They will be already eight, nine or 10 [points clear], comfortable in the table. This is Burnley, so the fact they only have one point in this moment – they have played one match less and the fact they have one point doesn’t tell me much.
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“Burnley is Burnley. The way they play, the players they have, their style of play, the manager, nothing’s changed there. It’s always difficult and it’s going to be difficult.”
While he admitted that his side will go into the game with confidence, he made it clear that his players expect to have a battle on their hands when they visit Turf Moor on Monday.
When asked if he expects his side to score goals, Mourinho responded: “But I expect Burnley to try to stop us, and they’ve done that for many years, with success in many cases.
“They don’t concede many goals, they defend very well, they know what it is to strop the strongest teams from winning against them.
“So I expect a very difficult match and to be scoring goals is a consequence of how well we are playing. That of course brings confidence. We will go there confident, but I have to make sure I pass to the players my feelings and my feelings don’t change since the first day I played Burnley. It’s difficult.
“Full of confidence yes but also aware of the difficulties. As I was saying before Burnley is Burnley and they know the way they want to play, the problems they want to give to opponents.
“They know how they want to defend, how they try to hurt opponents offensively.
“Years and years the same coach, the same philosophy, much of the players the same too.
“It doesn’t mean anything for me apart from confidence. Confidence yes, confidence but the goals and the two victories doesn’t mean anything for me.”
Spurs Web Opinion
We certainly cannot afford to go into the game expecting to walk all over Burnley. Sean Dyche will set them up to stop us playing and we might find it difficult to break them down. We have made a habit of scoring early in games this season and if we can get another early one against Burnley and force them to come on to us a bit more, it will make our task much easier.
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