Unai Emery said Tottenham are “favourites” to finish above his Aston Villa team due to their bigger budget as the top-four hopefuls prepare to meet in the Premier League on Sunday.
Fourth-placed Villa visit north London five points clear of Ange Postecoglou’s men and have finished above Spurs in the past two seasons.
But Villa’s Spanish boss Emery said Tottenham’s greater resources made them favourites for the match and to finish higher in the league.
“They are the favourites in front of us for the season and favourites for the match on Sunday,” he said on Friday.
“But we are competing and we are being confident in how we are doing our way.
“We are trying to be contenders with those teams like Tottenham, or Chelsea or Newcastle, to compete with them in the top seven, top six, it is a really great match.”
Emery, whose team have made an electrifying start to their Champions League campaign, added: “I have to tell everybody, there are another seven teams in front of us in the beginning, with the budget.
“But we are competing and in the last two years we are progressively getting better and keeping the same level we are trying to set as a target.”
Tottenham’s 2-1 League Cup victory over Manchester City in midweek came after a below-par display in a 1-0 defeat at Crystal Palace last week and made it eight wins in their past 10 matches in all competitions.
But only three of those victories have been in the Premier League and Postecoglou knows his eighth-placed team must find greater consistency.
He said: “In the league we have had some disappointing results but really only one disappointing performance and that was the Palace game. It wasn’t a great performance and we got what we deserved.
“We continue to evolve, learn from that and when we have had disappointments, we bounce back straight away, which I think is important.
“It is part of the evolution of the team. It is not going to be a smooth ride but within that we don’t want there to be too many times when we are not playing the football we want to.
“I have said it to the players, ‘If you want to grow a beautiful garden you have to handle some fertiliser’. That is the only way it will happen.”
Spurs captain Son Heung-min missed Wednesday’s win against City with an injury but returned to training on Friday.
The South Korean has missed three of Tottenham’s past four Premier League matches but looks likely to be fit to face Villa.
“Son has trained today. If he gets through training tomorrow, he should be OK,” said Postecoglou.
Spurs will be without defender Micky van de Ven, who suffered a hamstring injury against City, but Postecoglou said he should return after this month’s international break.
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