Mauricio Pochettino, the Tottenham Hotspur manager, knows that Premier League leaders Chelsea will present a formidable challenge to his team at White Hart Lane tonight but hopes that his players' performance in the first meeting of the clubs at Stamford Bridge will give them confidence.

Chelsea conceded the first goal of that match in November to Christian Eriksen but recovered to win 2-1 through Pedro and Victor Moses, and have lost only once to their London rivals in 15 meetings in all competitions. They also have a 10-point advantage over Tottenham going into Wednesday’s encounter.

"I think that it is an important gap that they have, but we believe that at White Hart Lane, with our fans, it will be a fantastic atmosphere and we are confident that we can win,” Pochettino said.

“We are ambitious. We know that Chelsea have very good players and are playing with a lot of confidence but you know that always it is tough to play at White Hart Lane and we will arrive in a very good condition to challenge them.

“If we review the game from November we deserved more at Stamford Bridge. We played very well, were unlucky. It was a shame that we conceded a goal in the last few minutes of the first half.

“The way that we played, we dominated the game and we created more chances than them but you know you always need to be more clinical. We are now in that moment in the last few games that we scored a lot of goals (eight in their past two matches).

“I think always when you play a big team like Chelsea is you need to be clinical when you create the chances. It will be a great game. I think we are excited to wait for that.”

Pochettino downplayed the significance of last season's match at Stamford Bridge, when Chelsea raised their game to salvage a 2-2 draw that finally ended Tottenham's pursuit of Leicester City for the Premier League title. Revenge will not be an incentive, he insisted.

“That chapter is now closed and this is a different game,” he said. “If we need to blame someone, we need to blame ourselves. We are the guilty ones that we did not achieve the Premier League last season for different reasons. In our head is to win the game and to get three points and close the gap but not revenge for last season.”

Whether the two sets of supporters, whose mutual dislike only seems to grow at every meeting, will agree is doubtful. Pochettino recognises that the Spurs faithful would love to see their team prevent Chelsea from setting a new Premier League record of 14 successive victories.

Hazard scored the goal to end Spurs' title hopes (Getty)

“Yes I think always Chelsea, Arsenal, are our enemies and, it is true, for our fans it is a very special game on Wednesday. But as a professional, as we are, the most important thing is to get three points. We need [the points] because we want to fight for the top four or win the league this season and to reduce the gap is key for us.”

Chelsea had to fight hard to beat Stoke City on New Year's Eve while Spurs cruised to a 4-1 victory over injury-ravaged Watford at Vicarage Road on January 1, hardly breaking sweat and taking Dele Alli and Harry Kane off in the second half.

But Pochettino believes that the new regime introduced at Stamford Bridge this season by Antonio Conte will mean that two hard-running teams will be at peak fitness tonight.