Mauricio Pochettino Blasts Xavi Hernandez

Mauricio Pochettino has accused Xavi Hernandez of doing Manchester City’s dirty work, saying the former Barcelona player “tried to destroy our focus” by suggesting Pep Guardiola likes Dele Alli.

Xavi has said that Alli is the “type of player” wanted by Guardiola at Man City, and suggested they have the money to prize the PFA Young Player of the Year from Tottenham in the summer.

Pochettino said that he had not seen Xavi’s comments but in a light-hearted attack, he questioned the character of the Spain legend, who remains close to Guardiola after playing with him and under him at Camp Nou.

The Spurs boss remembered when Xavi — now playing in Qatar, aged 37 — lied and cheated in a 1-0 victory for Guardiola’s Barcelona over his Espanyol team in December 2009.

“He’s in a period when he loves to talk, he’s in Doha and — listen — he was a Barcelona player, he’s my enemy. He tried to destroy our focus to win because he hates me because he’s Barcelona — a player, a fan, you know,” said Pochettino, whose team are seven points clear of City with six league matches to play.

“I know him [Xavi] very well, I played against him a lot and when I was a manager [at Espanyol]. Yesterday, Thierry [Henry] was here and we remembered the game that he [Xavi] cheated the referee. He fell down, it wasn’t a penalty, but [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic scored for Barcelona and they won the game.

“The marking man was Raul Baena, Xavi fell down and said ‘penalty.’ They gave a penalty. After, in the video [replay], it was very funny because no one touched him and everyone in the media was saying, ‘No, no trust me — it was a penalty.’ Come on! It goes from lie to lie to lie.

“I don’t know what Xavi said but he is working for Manchester City, maybe? He wants to help Guardiola and [club captain Vincent] Kompany.”

At an earlier briefing, Pochettino had refused to offer any guarantees that Alli would stay at Tottenham in the summer, before encouraging his players to focus for the remainder of the season, before thinking about their futures.

Kyle Walker, Danny Rose and Christian Eriksen have also been linked with other clubs since Saturday’s FA Cup semifinal defeat to Chelsea but Pochettino insisted that Spurs would only sell the players they want to in the summer.

“I think because we are doing good things, the club with a lot of potential are focused on our players, on our talented players. But it is important, I told you, because my relationship with Daniel Levy is so close — so far! You know the relationship between chairman and manager can change in a moment,” he joked.

“The good thing is we have the plan to try to improve. And we will deliver it when we finish the season. Like I told you, the players that we want to keep, we will keep.

“Because he [Levy] said to me, ‘We don’t need money.’ If we sell some players it is because we want to sell some players. 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 for the reason to try to improve the team, try to be more competitive next season.”