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Cape Town - Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Dele Alli has admitted he does not welcome allegations against him of diving, although he claims to be undistracted by them.
Alli, who has picked up bookings for simulation against Huddersfield and Liverpool, drew criticism after seeing several penalty appeals turned down by referee Kevin Friend during Tottenham's 1-0 win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.
Speaking to The Mirror, the 21-year-old shared his side of the story, claiming: "Nobody wants to be labelled as a cheat. It's an opinion and everyone has a different opinion. I get into the box a lot and round the box, and I'm an attacking player and I get a lot of fouls.
"That's the beauty of football. It's all about opinions, but the main one that matters to me is my family's and my coaches. I'm confident in what I believe in, what they believe in and what the manager sees. There are some that look bad.
"It's different when you are in the action. The one at Crystal Palace, that's the one I saw a lot of reaction to. I was running through and, at the time, all that was going through my head was that I didn't want to step on the keeper.
"But when you watch it back and people start saying stuff, it can look a lot different. That's why I think it's important that players, not just about diving, about other stuff too, that you don't get too involved in it and just focus on what you are doing. As long as your main focus is football, then that's all you need to think about."
Tottenham will be in action against Swansea City in Saturday's away FA Cup quarter-final. For now, Alli's attention is firmly fixed on helping to deliver his club's first trophy in 10 years.
"We believe in ourselves. Every game we go into, we feel like we should win. It's not always the case, but we've got to have that mentality to be winners and win stuff," he said.
"We have to believe we can win every game and it will be a tough game against Swansea, it's a difficult place to go and they showed us that when we played them in the League.
"But we've got to believe we can win and then if we win and go through, we've got to believe we can beat the next team. We all want to win stuff and to achieve stuff as a team."
