Jan Vertonghen says the players’ focus remains solely on taking three points from Sunday’s trip to Sunderland.

The Belgian international defender, ever-present for us at centre-half so far in 2015-16, is naturally eager to taste victory on the domestic scene for the first time this season after a frustrating start to the campaign.

Three draws in a row have followed on from our 1-0 loss to Manchester United on the opening day but Jan believes the feeling of disappointing surrounding those results won’t linger on into our trip to the Stadium of Light, the centre-half insisting our overall targets remain the same.

“Obviously we want to win at Sunderland, but we want to win every game we play,” said the 28-year-old.

“At the end of the day we want to fight for the top places in the table so there is a bit of pressure on us to win this weekend, but not any more than normal in my view. We’re fully focused on going there and getting the result we need.”

As for the opposition, Sunderland have three familiar faces in their ranks in ex-Spurs Jermain Defoe and Younes Kaboul, plus on-loan DeAndre Yedlin.

While DeAndre is ineligible to play against us under loan rules, Jan says he’s looking forward to catching up with striker Jermain and his former central defensive colleague Younes – but only after the 90 minutes are up.

“It’ll be good to see them,” he added. “They’re very good guys, good players and both of them had good spells at Tottenham, but of course we’re going there to win so that’s always the priority for us.”