Tottenham striker Peter Crouch expects a battle against Stoke City.

Crouch admits that he thought Stoke City would be whipping boys when they came up to the Barclays Premier League - but he now fears that Tottenham won't know how to deal with them.

"They are always a tough, tough team and a team that will be difficult to break down, a team that will try to impose itself on the game.

"They've had some great results, beat top teams and quite often teams just don't know how to deal with them with the long throws and set-pieces, but they have a lot of quality as well, so we'll have to be careful. It's not an easy game."

Tottenham have earned plaudits for their relatively attractive style of football, but Crouch is aware that those tactics might not work against Stoke.

He thinks Tottenham should be focusing on rolling their sleeves up.

"We've got to be able to match their effort and commitment and that's something we'll endeavour to do," he told the Daily Mail. "All said and done though, with the quality we have, we'd like to say we've got enough to beat them."