Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino: Liverpool and Manchester City are still favourites for Premier League

Manchester City lost ground on leaders Liverpool over the weekend after their shock defeat by Crystal Palace and Spurs closed in after a thrilling win over Everton

Tottenham were prolific at Goodison Park (AFP/Getty Images)

Mauricio Pochettino has insisted Liverpool and Manchester City remain the teams to beat despite Tottenham’s emphatic 6-2 victory over Everton which left them only two points behind Pep Guardiola’s champions.

City lost ground on leaders Liverpool over the weekend after their shock defeat by Crystal Palace, and are now four points off the top, and Spurs closed behind them after a thrilling win in which Son Heung-min and Harry Kane each scored twice.

“I still believe that Liverpool and Manchester City are the real contenders and favourites to win the Premier League,” said Pochettino. “Then we are there, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United still a way back.

“There is still a long way to see if we are real contenders or not. Football is about being consistent. If we are able to be consistent and play in the way we played tonight, yes, maybe we will arrive in April being a real contender. But there is still a long way.

“We are involved in four competitions. I think today we surprised everyone with the energy and quality we showed today which was amazing after playing Arsenal on Wednesday.

“Now we are close but we need to be cautious, go step-by-step, game-by-game. We need to be conscious about that, we need to fight a lot, and there is still a long way for work and to be consistent. Being involved in four competitions will be tough but are going to try.

“The mentality today was clear and we need to always think about the next game and and try to win every game and to be in the best condition to fight for big things.”

Everton were at sixes and sevens defensively on an alarming day for manger Marco Silva, but the Portuguese refused to single out his goalkeeper Jordan Pickford for blame despite the England No1’s significant error which led to Spurs' opening goal.

“It is our job, not just with Jordan, with all of them,” said Silva. ”Our job is to give them conditions so this kind of thing doesn’t happen again. It has happened more with our team in the last games. We have to work hard to improve these kinds of things.

“It was a really bad afternoon for us, really bad result for us, for our fans. We have to realise why and we will realise for sure.

“Every time they went forward it was easy for them. Our organisation in our defensive moment, we don’t put enough aggressiveness in the match.”