Winks: Liverpool and Man City should “worry” about Spurs title race threat

Harry Winks believes Premier League title favourites Manchester City and Liverpool should not take Tottenham Hotspur’s challenge lightly this season.

Spurs remain unbeaten following their opening two league outings against Aston Villa (3-1) at home and away to defending champions City (2-2).

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Spurs, though, were a tad fortunate in their showdown at the Etihad stadium as Pep Guardiola’s men thoroughly dominated the proceedings but good fortune and a superb performance from Hugo Lloris betweem the sticks earned them a hardfought point.

Winks, a product of Spurs’ youth system, played all but 34 minutes in Manchester and is now a fixture in Mauricio Pochettino’s squad who have established themselves as a top-four side. Tottenham, chasing a first English top division crown since 1961, have come agonisingly close to mounting a sustainable title pursuit in recent years.

No longer a team on the rise, Spurs are quietly backing themselves and Winks feels City and the European champions mustn’t think it’s going to be between themselves again.

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“I think they [City and Liverpool] should worry about us,” he told the Evening Standard.

“We’ve shown in the last few years we can compete with the best teams in the Premier League and Europe. It’s important we do that on a consistent basis this season and it’s important we go to places like City and Liverpool and get results.

“The manager doesn’t allow fear in us. We don’t go into any game beaten mentally. We go into every game knowing we can win and we can outperform them. Our mentality going into every game is to be on the front foot, press and try to win. That’s probably why we came away with a good point.”

Spurs’ rise under Pochettino: Five key things to know…

• Mauricio Pochettino joined Tottenham Hotspur ahead of the 2014/15 season.
• Spurs ended fifth in his debut season accumulating 64 points.
• They would finish inside the top four in the next four seasons: 3rd (2015/16), 2nd (2016/17), 3rd (2017/18) and 4th (2018/19).
• 86 points in 2016/17 was the most collected by Spurs in the Premier League era.
• Their runners-up effort in 2016/17 was the club’s best finish since the 1962/63 season.