“We need to go to Wembley and play, behave naturally and not try to find an excuse, that’s never good”, said Pochettino, whose team won 4-1 and drew 1-1 in two Europa League matches with Monaco last season.
Advertisement
They faced each other in the Europa League group stage last season, Spurs winning 4-1 at home with an Erik Lamela hat-trick having drawn 1-1 in the away tie.
The England worldwide midfielder agreed a new five-year deal on Tuesday, 24 hours before Spurs take on Monaco in their Group E opener at Wembley.
Mauricio Pochettino believes Tottenham have shaken off the hangover of last season’s meltdown in the Premier League title race as they prepare to challenge on multiple fronts.
“For me also, it’s two years since I played in the Champions League”.
Part of Tottenham’s home stadium is now undergoing construction work, so the ground has been deemed unsuitable to host Champions League matches.
An emphatic win saw Harry Kane end his goal drought, with the England striker scoring the fourth for Spurs and his first in 10 games for club and country.
Arsenal struggled with their own Wembley relocation as they won just two of their six fixtures in Europe when temporarily playing there in the late 1990s, but Davies believes the move could prove to be beneficial to Spurs.
Pochettino acknowledged that they’re starting to get over last season, especially with Harry Kane getting a goal.
“We feel good at White Hart Lane because it’s our home and we need to feel good at Wembley”.
“We hope we do better there [than Arsenal], we have put our preparations in place and we will train there again before the first game”.
“We are a fit team, we like to pass the ball around, and we can use that to our advantage”. Everyone knows how iconic Wembley is, but that’s what we’ve got to be careful of, Monaco are going to come here and it’s a big occasion for them as well. We want to go as far as we can, we feel we have a group that we can definitely qualify from.
Despite his best efforts, some players are still going to feel pressure to do “more than their share” against Monaco.
“We trust in us”, said the 44-year-old, who remains without the injured Danny Rose.
Advertisement
“We have to make sure we’re ready for that”.
