Martin Keown comments on how Tottenham can stop Lionel Messi

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Premier League giants Tottenham Hotspur will welcome La Liga champions Barcelona to Wembley in tonight’s Champions League clash.

Tottenham Hotspur have received some advice from a rather unlikely source ahead of Wednesday night’s massive Champions League clash with Barcelona.

The La Liga giants will travel to Wembley Stadium with Spurs under big pressure to get a positive result after losing their European opener away at Inter Milan a fortnight ago, with two goals in the last five minutes ensuring that Christian Eriksen’s opener amounted to nothing.

Understandably, Lionel Messi has been identified as the main threat to Mauricio Pochettino’s side with arguably the world’s greatest footballer having scored a sublime hat-trick in Barca’s 4-0 battering of PSV in match-day one.

But the Arsenal legend believes Messi can be stopped – and has named two Tottenham players who have a massive role to play.

“The key to stopping Messi is to create as much traffic in the middle of the pitch, restrict his space and make life as uncomfortable as possible. When facing him you have to do everything at lightning speed, have quick feet and show great determination to stop him wriggling into space,” Keown told The Mail.

“Injuries to Dele Alli and Mousa Dembele mean this responsibility is likely to fall on Victor Wanyama and Harry Winks.

“Between them they have seen just 174 minutes of Premier League football this season and will lack sharpness. It is vital that the back-line helps them by pushing up to reduce space for Messi.

“In doing so, they must be careful to stop him making runs in behind, too.”

Wanyama is expected to start at the base of midfield with Dembele ruled out and his formidable strength means Pochettino will be praying he gets to grips with the elusive Messi.

Winks, meanwhile, has been criticised by some Spurs supporters of late but he was outstanding in the 3-1 Wembley victory against Real Madrid this time last year so there is no reason to believe he cannot repeat that performance against another La Liga giant.