Shearer says: “Pochettino needs to stop Alli’s diving habit.”

Prem legend discusses Tottenham ace

Having played for England and for club teams against overseas opposition, there’s no question that diving is more prevalent and accepted abroad than it is here.

So it wasn’t that much of a surprise to hear Mauricio Pochettino say what he said after the Spurs game at Anfield.  

We don’t like it here, we don’t want to see it, and we regard it as cheating.  

As far as I’m concerned Pochettino should be ramming it down Dele Alli’s throat that he has to stop it, because that’s the third time he’s been booked for it. 

Alli just hasn’t performed as well this season as last, and so the manager’s focus should be on that. 

He may have thought his comments would draw attention away from the player, but instead he should be concentrating on getting the player to stop diving. 

There’s no doubt at some point Alli’s actions will cost his team, he’ll be fouled, it should be a penalty, but because of his reputation, his history of diving, he’s not going to get it and when that happen?

Tottenham will only have themselves to blame.

Pochettino may regard diving as part of the game, a skill to be practiced.

But what’s unusual about Alli is that he’s not a foreign player coming into the UK game from Europe or South America, where it is more widely accepted.

He’s a young English player, who has come through the lower leagues and should know what we want and don’t want to see in our game, and that makes his actions all the more surprising.

Pochettino also spoke about VAR being used on diving decisions and how he felt we could end up focussing too much on what he called ‘small actions like this’.

I don’t agree with his sentiment. I want to get rid of it from our game.

So where there is a clear cut dive, like Dele Alli at Anfield, or Josh King for Bournemouth against Stoke, when it’s that blatant, the authorities retrospectively ban the players for two games. 

That might just stop it.