The Premier League champions thrashed the Londoners 6-0 at home and 5-1 at White Hart Lane last season, but Pellegrini believes the arrival of Pochettino, who he faced in La Liga, can rejuvenate Spurs.

The Chilean said: "Yes, 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. Mauricio Pochettino is a very good manager. I'm not saying (Andre) Villas-Boas wasn't in that moment, but really we played our best last season. We hope on Saturday we can do a very good game also.

"He (Pochettino) is a young manager that was very successful in Spain with Espanyol, it was a team that always played good and attractive football and it was 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 that is an important club with big players.

"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 which is the leader in this moment.

"We also have one game against Newcastle which is like 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 to win both of them.

"The best way to think is that every game is a final."