Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger does not agree with Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino's assertion over Dele Alli's dive against Liverpool last weekend and suggested that English players have now become the "masters of diving" in recent years.

Alli received a yellow card for his simulation at Anfield on the weekend - his third since making his debut for Spurs in 2015 - but Pochettino dismissed the 21-year-old's perceived cheating as a mere act of football trickery, per The Guardian.

The Tottenham manager's comments did not wash with Wenger, though, and the Arsenal boss thinks British stars such as Alli are now experts in diving, which many believed was brought into the English game by foreign players a couple of decades ago.

"I am convinced he wanted to see tricking your opponent as to be clever. Was it an apology for diving? I'm not sure," Wenger said in his press conference, per The Mirror.

"In my case, no. We want to get diving out of the game. It used to be the foreigners but I must say the English players have learnt very quickly and are maybe the masters now."

The spotlight will be on Alli when Tottenham play host to Arsenal on Saturday (10 February), but attention will also be drawn to Wenger's attacking set-up at Wembley.

Alexandre Lacazette was an unused substitute as new signings Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang helped the Gunners run riot over Everton last weekend, but Wenger suggested that the former Lyon forward would have been afforded some minutes if Petr Cech did not suffer a calf injury, though he offered no guarantees over a return to the starting line-up for the for 16-time France international.

"You do not have to understand too much," the Arsenal boss said. "What you want is for everyone to be focused to win the game.

"In this game he didn't come on because we had a problem with the goalkeeper."

Arsene Wenger
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