Listening to Antonio Conte, you'd be forgiven for thinking Tottenham are a lower league side preparing to face Manchester City in the FA Cup.
Conte told Italian media that Spurs lack character, experience and are weaker after the January transfer window. He said his side need time to implement ideas and effectively ruled them out of the top-four race.
Then, in another interview, he said City would expose the difference in quality between the two sides, saying: "In this game you understand the distance, the gap that you have with the other - but you want to play without fear - also because I repeat we are in a moment that we have to go through this situation if we want to have another step and the game against City we know it could be very tough.'
"We know that probably they will have the possession of 70, 75 minutes during the game, but we want to try to change something and also to show that we can fight."
It's the kind of message a non-league manager sends to his players before a big cup trip to a Premier League side. Not a world-class manager preparing a side with some world-class players for a 'Big Six' league game.
Conte has won the Premier League he says Spurs are so far away from winning, and won his fourth Serie A last year. Spurs have last season's Premier League top goalscorer and top assister, the France captain, and chief City-tormentor Heung-min Son. Spurs have won three of the last four league meetings between these sides, despite their overall level falling since reaching the Champions League final in 2019.
City know just as well as Conte does - Spurs have as good a chance as they always do of nicking a win on Saturday. They must find a way to ignore the mind games, while proving Conte's sentiments absolutely right.
Conte has worked so hard to make Spurs the rank outsiders, you half expect him to arrive at the Etihad telling his players to just enjoy the experience, soak in the occasion, and maybe they'll avoid a hammering.
But there may be a driving motivation behind the pessimism, as it can only be assumed that Conte's dressing room message to his Spurs players is different to the public one. If he positions his side as huge underdogs then guides them to a good result, it can be used as a positive for that battle to finish in the top four.
Alternatively, it could simply feed City's motivation for this tie, and give the Blues extra reason to put on a performance on Saturday. After beating Sporting 5-0 in the Champions League, Pep Guardiola challenged his players to improve and be better individually. Bernardo Silva called them 'sloppy' and 'lucky', despite putting on a breathtaking attacking performance at times in Portugal.
So if the players weren't ready to listen to Guardiola or Bernardo, they can use Conte's mind games as a reminder of the need to be fully focussed. The Italian has effectively written Guardiola's pre-match team talk for him.
Now, City must block out the noise that will follow Tottenham to the Etihad and put all their efforts into proving Conte is right about the gap between the sides.
