Tottenham's lack of European football gives them a huge advantage over their rivals this season, according to Dejan Kulusevski.
Spurs went two points clear at the top of the Premier League with a 2-0 win over Fulham in north London on Monday night, sealed by goals either side of half-time from Heung-min Son and James Maddison.
While Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle, West Ham and high-flying Aston Villa all return to European action this week, Spurs are reaping the benefits of time on the training ground with Ange Postecoglou, as they made it nine League games unbeaten under the Australian.
Leicester City in 2015-16 and Antonio Conte’s Chelsea the following season both won the League while not in Europe and, though Kulusevski says it is premature to talk of a title push, he believes Spurs must take advantage of their lighter schedule.
Asked by Standard Sport if no European football gave Spurs an edge over their rivals, the forward said: “It does for sure. You can feel the difference and hopefully, you will see it even more at the end of the season.
“It helps a lot, honestly. Physically, I remember last season was very hard playing three games a week. You feel very tired in the warm-ups!
"Also, mentally, not having to travel to Spain or Italy to play games helps. You are at home, with your family, you have a good rest mentally, also.
“So it is a huge thing that we have and we have to take advantage of that this year.”
Spurs can go five points clear at the summit with another win at Crystal Palace on Friday night but Kulusevski added: “It is early [for title talk], we will see what happens.
“Everything can change so we don’t need to talk about that but we must live for the day with a smile, train hard and not forget who we are. We must try to get better every day.
“It is not important what people say. The important thing is to work hard, be humble, listen to the coach and keep the smiles on faces. Then at the end of the season, we will see where we are.”
Postecoglou gave his side a public dressing down after the match, saying they “took some liberties” in possession in the second half and that the result did not disguise their need for improvement.
“We felt it of course, when we were playing,” added Kulusevski, who was more than once guilty of an extra touch in the final third. “Normally in the second half we play our best so it was a little bit strange but we have just got to come back stronger and keep the ball better.
You have got to have fun when you work and when you are playing. That is number one
“In attack, we lost too many easy balls, it can happen. We are humans so we have to come away from that and think of Friday.
“Number one, we have to keep playing [our] football. That is why we are winning. We have to get back to playing the way we can and be ready for Friday.”
Though Postecoglou was dissatisfied, Spurs’s 23 points from nine games means no manager in the history of the Premier League has made a better start and there is a palpable sense of fun about his exhilarating, hard-running side.
Kulusevski added: “You have got to have fun.
“It is more important than everything, of course! You have got to have fun when you work and when you are playing. That is number one. Of course we are very disappointed with the second half but it was still very good to come away with three points.
“[When I played for] Atalanta Under-19s we had the same kind of feeling. We had very, very much fun. Every day was fantastic. We just played football every day. I now have that little feeling now.”
