Hugo - Life begins at 41!

It’s a case of 41 down and at least 16 to go, but Hugo Lloris insists the players are only getting stronger as each game goes by.

With three months of the campaign still to come, our battle on several fronts continues this week with back-to-back home games against Fiorentina and West Ham in the Europa League and Premier League respectively.

A quick return match against the Italian side follows next Thursday, before our Capital One Cup Final showdown with Chelsea at Wembley on March 1.

Despite the series of key games ahead, goalkeeper Hugo says the team is bristling with confidence after recent performances on the pitch.

“The feeling from the players is that we’re still improving, so that’s really promising,” said the 28-year-old. “We feel fit, we feel strong mentally and we now enter the most important period of the season, so we are ready to compete.

“We will see at the end where we are. We are not counting matches, we’re just playing and thinking about the next one, game by game.”

Our French international skipper was among the players who spoke positively about our performance in the 2-1 victory over Arsenal in the North London derby earlier this month.

A similarly high-octane showing wasn’t quite enough to take anything away from Anfield three days later, Liverpool beating us 3-2, but our charismatic stopper has nonetheless been encouraged by the direction in which the team is heading.

“We’ve improved as a team,” he added. “We’ve shown in the last couple of weeks what we are able to do in terms of intensity and quality of our game, but we always want more.

“We are still alive in three competitions, we are focused on trying to go as far as possible in the Premier League, the Europa League and of course the Capital One Cup Final, which will be a great moment.”