Pochettino fires warning at Man United after CSKA Moscow win

Tottenham’s victory secured third place in Group E, behind Monaco and Bayer Leverkusen, and means they will feature in the Europa League for a sixth season in succession.

Akinfeev has failed to keep a clean sheet in each of his last 39 Champions League apps, last doing so 10 years ago vs Arsenal.

The examples of Liverpool and Chelsea so far this season, Leicester last season and Liverpool in 2013-14 prove the benefit of no European football, something Pochettino reluctantly admitted at his news conference on Tuesday.

Leonid Slutsky will quit as CSKA Moscow coach after Wednesday’s Champions League game against Tottenham. “It is a trophy that is important in Europe”, he said. “But it was good to go out there and win”.

“I’m lucky to have the club here so it’ll be a case of speaking to the right people, John McDermott maybe, who helped me start it up, and getting it back on track”.

At the very least, the merits of the Europa League were a tough sell for Pochettino and there was a revealing moment when he struggled to describe the Thursday night-Sunday afternoon cycle that comes with it as being anything other than a “psychological” problem. Just think, the boys win the competition and we automatically qualify for next seasons UCL.

“Now we need to move ahead”.

“We are out of the Champions League, the Europa League is good for us”.

The centre-half does not think playing at Wembley should make any difference to the players and the level of performance.

Tottenham’s dominance of this match made a mockery of the “Wembley curse” as they played with the confidence, freedom and verve that has been missing from their game for so much of this year.

‘It was very important to get the win for different reasons, ‘ said Vertonghen. For out players to play in Europe. Sure, CSKA opened up the scoring before Spurs did (missed opportunities will do that), but eventually the amount of pressure they had to deal with prevented them from opening up their offense to score an equalizer.

Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino has no affection for the Europa League and the strain it puts on domestic ambitions, but is keen to proceed in the competition and play more games at Wembley.

“It is important to be positive”.

“Yes we are disappointed we didn’t get through in the Champions League but we were in a similar situation at this stage last season and finished strongly”.

Jose Mourinho’s men are now 13 points adrift of Premier League leaders Chelsea, and even though it is early days in the campaign, it would not be outlandish to suggest that their chances of becoming English champions are incredibly slim.

Asked about the return of key players like Alderweireld, Pochettino said the team were stronger.

This time Kyle Walker looked offside as he played in Eriksen, whose lifted cross to the back post was misjudged by Kirill Nababkin, allowing Alli time to touch down and bend the ball into the far corner.