Lewis Holtby: 'We aren't scared of Arsenal'

By Joe Fish, Reporter | 26 March 2013

Lewis Holtby insists that Tottenham are not scared of Arsenal shafting them from the Champions League qualifying places, despite the Gunners reducing the gap on Spurs to four points.

Lewis Holtby has claimed that Tottenham Hotspur are not worried by the narrowing gap between them and Arsenal in the race for Champions League qualification.

Defeats to Liverpool and Fulham prior to the international break saw Spurs, who had moved seven points clear of the Gunners with a North London derby victory on March 3, surrender their advantage to just four, having played one game more than their fierce rivals.

Arsenal overturned a 10-point deficit to snatch third place from the Lillywhites last season and due to Chelsea's winning of the trophy, deny Spurs a spot in Europe's premier competition.

However, Holtby has insisted that Tottenham will not dwell on the events of the previous campaign and are confident that there will not be a repeat this time around.

The Germany international told the Daily Mail: "We're not scared. That's the past. We are prepared.

"We have a lot of players who have seen that but we are prepared now and we have to just focus on our game. We don't look at the table, just win our games and at the end we can watch and hope that we are in the top four.

"We can definitely do it. We had 12 unbeaten league games, we had a very good run. And now we've had three disappointing games."

Spurs have not finished above Arsenal since 1995.