LONDON -- Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino believes he needs to help Harry Kane manage the rising expectations around him as the young striker prepares for the first major Wembley occasion of his career in the Capital One Cup final against Chelsea on Sunday.
Kane has been the shining star of Tottenham's season so far and heads to Wembley as Tottenham's big hope of delivering the club's first major trophy since they last won the League Cup competition in 2008, with Pochettino keen to play down the importance of the 21-year-old striker to his side.
"Harry Kane scores goals and the focus is on him at the moment, but it's important now to try to help him and manage this pressure in the best way," Pochettino told reporters. "He needs to be free and feel fresh and need to help him so he doesn't feel too much the pressure.
"We need to take this pressure and put out the pressure. We need to understand always in football in 10 months you sometimes are up or down but after it's about performance -- and how you can keep your level all season.
"He changed a lot from the start of the season. You talk to people already here at the club when you arrive and they tell us about Kane. It's important for us to have the information about the players, so we knew him. Then it is down to developing his talent within our philosophy."
Kane's sparkling performance in Tottenham's 5-3 victory against Chelsea on New Year's Day confirmed his status as one of the Premier League's rising stars, but Pochettino it may be asking too much for him to repeat that display against the Blues at Wembley on Sunday.
"His performance against Chelsea proved he had talent, but you have to keep this performance," he added. "It's maybe difficult to keep to this level every match all season but you prove you have a skill and a good player.
"With young players, we must be careful and to try to be patient because he needs to mature and after in football when you are in this level every time you play, you need to show. Otherwise the pressure is hard, but his mind is very good and I think he can manage that."
One Tottenham player who insists he will not feel any pressure when he runs out at Wembley is Christian Eriksen, who has yet to feature at the stadium Wembley for club or Denmark.
"I always had pressure, so I think I've learned to live with it," he said. "Of course, every player has a different style of play, has a different talent, so people look differently at you. But from the position I played, you need to have a bit of pressure, and I've always been used to it.
"I think a lot of players who start young always get the comparison to other people who are a bit older. So of course that started early. They started to put a bit of pressure, but I've been used to it from early on, from when I started playing.
"Always when there is a talent coming through, you are always being compared to somebody else, because he is doing right. But luckily I'm starting to make my own mark, so I'm better with that."
Eriksen said he belives that Pochettino has changed Tottenham's mentality ahead of big games.
"When you get the results that we did last season when we lost with heavy scores against the bigger teams," Eriksen said. "Now this season we have started winning against teams we didn't win against last season. That gives us a boost but also the confidence and everyone knows we can play against bigger teams.
"If you have a plan from a manager you know what to do, and what you're capable of and you just want to show it. You get the confidence from the manager to do what you're good at -- that definitely helps you."
Information from Press Association was used in this report.