Tottenham transfer news: Mauricio Pochettino laughs off Dele Alli to Man City talk from Barcelona 'enemy' Xavi

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Tom Collomosse25 April 2017

Mauricio Pochettino intends to ignore the views of Barcelona "enemy" Xavi after he said Pep Guardiola would try to sign Tottenham star Dele Alli for Manchester City.

Pochettino faced Xavi as both a player and a coach during his time in Spanish football, when the Tottenham boss worked for Espanyol – Barcelona's city rivals.

Xavi told Spanish newspaper AS: "I'm certain that this summer he will look all over Europe to get players to improve the team. For the time being there is one English player who is one of the best in Europe and that is Dele Alli."

But Pochettino laughed off the remarks, preferring to recall a match between Barcelona and Espanyol in 2009, when Pochettino was part of the Espanyol coaching staff.

"Xavi is in a period where he loves to talk. He is working for Manchester City, maybe," smiled Pochettino, clearly half-joking.

"He is playing in Qatar and he was a Barcelona player, he's my enemy. He tried to destroy our focus to win because he hates me. He's Barcelona – a player, a fan, you know.

"I remember the game when Xavi fell down, it wasn't a penalty, but the referee awarded it. Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored the penalty and Barcelona won the game. Xavi fell and said "penalty!" and it was given.

"On the replays, it was very funny because nobody touched him. At Tottenham we are doing things and the club has a lot of potential, so there is focus on a talented player."

The rise of Dele Alli

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Pochettino left Southampton to take over at Spurs in May 2014. In recent years, Saints have seen a number of their players cherry-picked by the most successful clubs in England.

Tottenham themselves took Victor Wanyama last summer, while Nathaniel Clyne, Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert, Dejan Lovren and Sadio Mane have all left St Mary’s for Liverpool. Morgan Schneiderlin moved to Manchester United before joining Everton.

Manchester City are interested in both Danny Rose and Kyle Walker, with the latter holding recent talks with Pochettino about his future.

But Pochettino is convinced there will be no repeat of what happened at Southampton.

He said: "My relationship with [chairman] Daniel Levy is very close. We have a plan to improve and we will deliver it when we finish the season.

"The players we want to keep, we will keep, because the chairman said to me: 'We don’t need the money.'

"If we sell some players, it is because we want to. We will sell players because of the players we want to sign.

"For our fans, it is so clear that all the decisions we take are to try to improve the team, try to be more competitive next season."

"It's completely different from Southampton. They were in a difficult situation, a very confused situation, when we finished there. If you remember in January [2014], Nicole Cortese left as chairman and that changed a little bit the whole project there.

"Tottenham is very established club with a very clear project. Of course in football all can change quickly.

"But today our ideas are so close and if we are not 100 per cent agreed on everything – as that is not possible – we agree on many things."

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