Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino has scorned suggestions that he should have Dimi Payet man marked in this evening’s game declaring: “I didn’t do it for Ronaldo or Messi – why should I do it for him?”
The Spurs boss said: “I’ve never done that. When I started as a manager and faced Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, it was never my intention to try to do something special or be focused on trying to stop this type of player. So I will not do it now.
“The most important thing is for us to try to recover the ball quickly, to have the ball more than them and focus on how we need to damage our opponents.
“It’s true that when you have a type of player like Payet in front of you, the players in his zone need to be aggressive, tight, try to anticipate and not give him space to play.