Mauricio's five-point preview - Crvena zvezda (Red Star)

Mauricio Pochettino looks ahead to our Champions League Group B match at home to Crvena zvezda (Red Star Belgrade) on Tuesday night.

Reigning champions, Red Star are top of the Serbian Super Liga with 10 wins in 11 and they already have 10 games in the Champions League under their belt this season having started in the first qualifying round back in July.

They competed well in Matchday One at Bayern Munich before eventually succumbing to a 3-0 defeat and then came from behind to beat Olympiacos 3-1 in MD2 at the Rajko Mitic Stadium.

Here is Mauricio's five-point preview...

1 - Watford

Turning back to Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Watford in the Premier League, how important did Mauricio feel it was to score the late equaliser (Dele on 86 minutes) and end on a positive note going into this game?

Mauricio: “In the last 20 minutes our performance was really good, we pushed, we never gave up and showed our character and quality and with a little more time, for sure, we’d have won the game. That was so important for the game tomorrow night. It’s going to be important to get the three points but more than that, to build our confidence and show our real quality.”

2 – The squad

We spoke to Mauricio after training on Monday - how did he gauge the mood of the players ahead of Red Star?

Mauricio: “The feeling was okay after the game, not great, but okay, we finished 1-1 with the feeling that we could win the game at the end. That was important for the confidence and now we need to build a run and start to be positive. Always in this type of situation you need to start from the first step, and we hope that Saturday was the first step and we now start to build our confidence and trust, start to be solid again and win games.”

3 – Dele

After a tough spell, Dele scored his first goal since January against Watford on Saturday. How pleased was Mauricio to see him back on the scoresheet?

Mauricio: “It's always difficult for a young player when everything arrives so quickly and to deal with that. I’m happy with his performance on Saturday, he scored a great goal and started to perform in the way we expect and the way he expects, too. Dele is a great player, a very talented player and I hope he starts to help the team again in the way he helped on Saturday.”

4 - Red Star

Red Star beat Olympiacos 3-1 in MD2, they are top of the Serbian Super Liga again and have lost just three of their last 131 league games. What is Mauricio expecting from the team from Belgrade?

Mauricio: “In the Champions League you need to respect every opponent. It’s a different competition and they all have quality. Respect is most important. We are in a situation now where we need to improve and to be focussed on ourselves. We always try to focus on us and in this period, even more. Red Star have very good players, a very good squad and will be dangerous and if we are not ready to compete at our best it will always be difficult. Every game is important, and we need to recover our best feelings, play a solid game and try to win.”

5 - Fans

Mauricio paid tribute to our fans on Saturday, stating ‘they gave that last energy that we needed to score’ - he’s looking for that same support against Red Star...

Mauricio: “It’s always important to have our fans right behind us. They are always there, they always help us and we hope to provide them with a good performance and good result.”