Pochettino backs Barca for title

And Spurs boss vows to put on a good show as they welcome Manchester City to their new stadium

TOTTENHAM Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino has said Barcelona will have the edge in their much-anticipated Uefa Champions League quarter-final against Manchester United and has backed the Spanish club to lift the title for a sixth time.

United have rediscovered their verve under interim manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who took over from Jose Mourinho in December, and has guided the club to 14 wins in 19 games.

Pochettino, however, feels United still have a lot of work to do to compete with Barcelona, who are 10 points clear at the top of the La Liga standings.

“If there is one favourite team to win Champions League it is Barcelona,” former Espanyol boss Pochettino told reporters.

“(Ernesto) Valverde is doing a great job. They have players of extraordinary level, and then they have Lionel Messi.

“I think the Manchester United team that has been built during the past few years was built to win big things.

“But I think Barcelona are one step higher than Manchester United.”

Spurs will face domestic rivals Manchester City in the quarter-finals, with Pochettino indicating Pep Guardiola’s reigning English champions are built to win Europe’s elite trophy.

“It is clear that Manchester City are a team designed to win and with an obligation to win,” he added.

“We will try to compete. We know that in short tournaments the fitness of the team at the time is very important. We have the incentive that we have a new stadium and we will play with 62 000 spectators. That will create a special energy.”

Tottenham will complete the move to their new 62 000-seater stadium before they host City on April 9.

Meanwhile, Paris Saint-Germain have won a legal battle against Uefa after European football’s governing body tried to reopen its investigation into the French club’s spending on transfer fees and wages.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said yesterday it had upheld PSG’s appeal against Uefa on the grounds that the body took too long to review its own decision to clear the French champions of breaking Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules.

The judgement is separate to an ongoing investigation by Uefa regarding PSG’s 2017-18 finances the season in which the club signed Neymar in a world record 222 million Euro deal from Barcelona and Kylian Mbappe from AS Monaco.

In June last year, the Investigatory Chamber of Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) cleared PSG of breaking Uefa’s break-even rules, yet later that month, the CFCB chairman ordered the Adjudicatory Chamber to review the decision.

The Adjudicatory Chamber then ruled in September that the case should be referred back to the Investigatory Chamber for further review.

PSG’s appeal to have that decision annulled was upheld by CAS.

The club successfully argued that Uefa missed the deadline set out in the CFCB’s Procedural Rules, which allow for a 10-day period during which any review should be instigated and completed. | Reuters