Fiery Fredi: Spurs showed no faith in me... I desperately want to win this game

The 29-year-old striker will face his former club for Sevilla tonight as the top scorer in Spanish football and believes he could have done the same for Tottenham if coach Martin Jol had shown more faith in him.

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"During my stay in Tottenham I would have been much more productive if I had been used more and had the coach shown any kind of faith in me at all," Kanoute said ahead of tonight's UEFA Cup quarter-final first leg in Spain.

"But in the last season there I did not have the confidence of the coach and for a forward that makes it absolutely impossible to do well and to impress.

"You cannot do your best when you play only 10 or 15 minutes in each match.

"In Seville I have received the total confidence of the coach and that has made all the difference to me.

"This season has been sensational for me in terms of scoring goals. I cannot believe it. I am top scorer in Spain with 19 goals in La Liga.

"It is already one of the best years in my professional career but I am still chasing more goals and I want at least one of those to come against Tottenham.

"To play and to score against Spurs, that would be very special for me.

"It would be a little bitter-sweet, I guess, because I did have some times at the club that I enjoyed. Having said that, I am with Sevilla now and I desperately want to beat Tottenham."

Kanoute spent nearly six years in the Premiership, firstly with West Ham. When it became clear that Jol was prepared to let him leave in the summer of 2005, the Mali striker could have stayed in England with Manchester City.

He chose to move to Spain and has not looked back, becoming part of a resurgent Sevilla side who won the UEFA Cup last season by thumping Middlesbrough 4-0, and they are now only two points off the leadership of La Liga, behind reigning champions Barcelona.

Kanoute is in the perfect position to assess suggestions in England that the Premiership is now the best league in the world.

His answer will surprise very few.

"In Spain the football is definitely superior to the football in England. I am convinced of that.

"In the Premiership the first clubs are good but from the ninth place downwards the level falls off very much.

"The difference between this two groups of teams in the Premiership is enormous, and I think that is a big problem for English football. In La Liga, any team can beat another but in England it is not like that."

Kanoute, who scored 14 Premiership goals in two full seasons at White Hart Lane, is not churlish enough to deny that Tottenham have made steady progress under Jol and indeed believes that the winner of this tie could determine who goes on to lift the UEFA Cup.

He said: "I think this is going to be a hard eliminator for Sevilla, and we really need to score at home in order for us to go to London with a decent chance to force an aggregate win."

Jol might think otherwise should Kanoute knock his team out, but he says he has no regrets over letting the player go.

The Spurs boss said: "He gets all the crosses, and even I would score seven or eight goals, with tap-ins and that. Fredi Kanoute at Spurs was a terrific player... especially at home!"

Jol was a little more generous towards tonight's opponents, adding: 'Sevilla are a top team. If we come out of this game with a good result you could say we have made progress at the highest level.

"We have played 50 games this season and that is evidence that we are doing well, because if we weren't we would not have to play so many games.

"We have done better than most of the other teams even if we don't win silverware. I would be disappointed but it is better to play in all the competitions, get to the quarter-finals and do well in the League and have nothing, rather than play one game in three weeks like other teams. I am very proud of the way things are going."

Spurs were knocked out of the latter stages of two other cup competitions this season, by Arsenal in the Carling Cup and Chelsea in the FA Cup.

Midfielder Jermaine Jenas said: "There are a lot of lessons to be learned from those defeats. If you look at the teams we have lost to, they have been two of the top three or four sides in England.

"It's up to us now to make that step so we are able to beat those sides so we can break through into the finals.

"The talent is definitely there, there's no question about that. On the day, maybe it's about a little stroke of luck. The replay against Chelsea, for example, it was two moments of brilliance from two players who hadn't really done it earlier in the season.

"This is why I came to Spurs, the exact reason, to be involved in these type of games. The manager has made some very clever buys and we're starting to build a good side."