Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino has thanked Jose Mourinho for labelling his side as title contenders.

The former Chelsea and Manchester United manager believes the Premier League will be a three horse race between Spurs, Manchester City and Liverpool.

Pochettino says he hopes it helps fuel his players with belief that they can compete at the top of the table.

"Wow. I love Mou. You know very well. He’s so clever and so sarcastic sometimes. That’s why he’s one of the best managers in the world and I respect his opinion.

"Of course I’m grateful because a manager like Mourinho believes we have the potential to be contenders. That’s important.

"We have our belief and faith in us and we know very well us but that compliment helps us to believe in ourselves a little bit more".

The Spurs boss also feels his team are better equipped to compete with City and Liverpool this term.

"We are going to fight again this season against ourselves to try to improve our balance. If we analyse the last five years we always improve every season in different things but in the Premier League I think we decrease in our performance or in the points we got.

"That is our challenge, to improve ourselves. To improve our numbers in the Premier League. Of course in Europe we have improved and become more competitive and got to the final of the Champions League.

"In the Premier League we decrease and that is the point today that we want to improve and to try to reduce the distance to City and Liverpool who were the two best teams in the Premier League. For us it’s our challenge. First of all our challenge is to, rather than compete with them, is to improve ourselves".