MANCHESTER: Manuel Pellegrini has warned that Manchester City cannot expect to thrash Tottenham Hotspur again after winning last season's two meetings with them by a combined scoreline of 11-1.
City host Spurs at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday in a repeat of a fixture they won 6-0 last November, while manager Pellegrini ranked the 5-1 victory at White Hart Lane as one of their best displays of last season.
But he is expecting a much tougher test against a side now managed by Mauricio Pochettino, who impressed him at Espanyol and Southampton.
The City boss told a news conference: "I am sure it is a different Tottenham. Last year one of the best games that we played was against Tottenham away. Here also we played very well, but we are not expecting that we can score six or five goals every time we play Tottenham. They are a very strong team.
"Really we played in our best moment last season. We hope tomorrow [Saturday] we can do a very good game also."
"Mauricio Pochettino is a very good manager. He is a young manager who was very successful in Spain with Espanyol. It was a team that always played good and attractive football and a creative team.
"He is trying the same way he did it last season at Southampton. That was a team that played very well. He continues now at Tottenham, an important club with big players."
Pellegrini believes City face seven "finals" over the next four weeks, explaining: "We know that from now until the next international break we have to play seven games in three different competitions.
"We have four games in the Premier League. It is very important for us to try not to drop points and to try and recover points from Chelsea.
"We also have one game against Newcastle which is a final because if we don't win we go out of the Capital One Cup.
"We have two games against CSKA Moscow in the Champions League and we need win to win both of them. The best way to think is that the next game is a final, which is Tottenham, we will try to win it and afterwards we will see which is the best team to try and win the next final."