Thomas Tuchel has played down his admiration for Spurs after a clip of him speaking of his fondness for Tottenham went viral on social media.

Asked about whether he was a fan of Spurs a kid, Tuchel said: “You’re really digging deep, yes?

“I want to be very honest because we played the Europa League game with Dortmund in Tottenham and everyone there was very friendly.

“I just explained that, when I was young, there was no daily match live on the television, no daily match live from the Bundesliga, so what I could actually see was one or two minutes every four weeks and suddenly a club like Tottenham Hotspur came across on our sports broadcaster.

“I heard the name Tottenham Hotspurs, which sounded like a big adventure and gave me a big advantage playing with my friends because they had no idea where that club was. I talked about that story.

“I was young and needed the money, huh. I was young. That was one of my first experiences. I didn’t even know it’s a club from London.

“But now I’m absolutely aware I work for their big rivals and you can be very, very sure we will do everything we can to beat them next week.”