West Ham United mark their return to Premier League action from the October international break with a mouthwatering London derby at Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday afternoon.
The Irons will look to take the bragging rights against our near-neighbours from north London and build upon the 4-1 victory over Ipswich Town prior to the hiatus as our national team players return from commitments around the globe.
That success against the Tractor Boys secured our first home points of the new campaign, and now Julen Lopetegui and his team are aiming to extend an unbeaten away record which has seen us claim positive derby results at Crystal Palace (2-0), Fulham (1-1) and Brentford (1-1).
Lopetegui is under no illusion as to the fact the Irons will need to be at our very best to make sure that happens - and secure a second straight win at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium following the 2-1 win there last term.
The boss answered questions on our opponents, his thoughts on the season so far and more in his pre-match press conference...
The win against Ipswich is in the past
These matches are the past for us. Now the present is the more important thjing and to be ready for the next challenge.
We were happy to have the victory, but now we are focused 100 per cent on the next challenge, which will be a very hard challenge against in my opinion one of the best teams in the Premier League.
They have big, big intensity, very good players and very good ideas so we have to be ready to have the right answer.
Ange Postecoglou has changed a lot for Tottenham
In my opinion he has made the players on the team better, and that’s why I like to see them.
They have very good players, but they all work as a team. But we have to put the focus on us and be ready to have a good answer, because we will have to be close to perfection to compete with them.
Our fans will always demand the best from us and this is a good thing for us. In the same way they support us always, and we have to be ready to play football, to defend and attack well, to be a strong and solid team. To be able to beat them there is not going to be easy, but this is our aim, always.
We need to focus on our job
Tottenham are a very compact, very narrow team, very aggressive and we have to be able to beat this kind of team.
They do a lot of very good things, but I prefer to put the focus on what we have to do. For me that is more important.
We will try to use our decisions too. We will try to beat this kind of situation playing well, understanding each moment and playing out of mini-matches well.
Tottenham is a team that has a lot of big intensity always and we have to be ready to have the right answers, but I won’t talk about tactics here!
Home or away, all games are important
We don’t make a difference between them.
Saturday’s match will be different from those we have played away so far, in the same way that Ipswich was different to those at home.
We put the same importance on all the matches, home or away.
The best thing so far has been the commitment of the players
They work hard and they know that if we want to achieve good things we have to work very hard every day and have the team feeling. This is the first step.
I am happy with this commitment and we are trying to improve in different ways, with and without the ball, but always with the feeling of hard work as a team.