Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino has said the Football Association tweet that mocked Spurs and England striker Harry Kane was "embarrassing".

The FA Cup's official Twitter account posted a meme of Manchester United defender Chris Smalling saying Kane's name, with text asking who had been in his pocket following United's semi-final win over Spurs last weekend.

The tweet was deleted and the FA apologised to both clubs, but Pochettino was not happy.

"For me it was embarrassing," he said. "It was a shame because the FA is English football and a potential captain like Harry Kane in the World Cup I think was difficult to understand, very, very difficult.

"Of course they apologised about that. It disappointed me, the situation, the fact it happened. They apologised after a few days but we move on."

The tweet is the continuation of fun being poked at Kane in recent weeks, after he was ridiculed heavily after claiming Tottenham's second goal in a 2-1 win at Stoke earlier this month.

And Pochettino believes this country should be building their players up, not knocking them down.

"Always from day one when I arrived in England I say we need to protect our assets, our English players, the young players," he said.

"We need to give them belief, we need to teach them, to educate, and this type of situation disappointed me a lot.

"Harry was very sad of course. But he's strong in his mind. He moves on and of course we're going to help him and we're helping him to move on about that situation.

"It was a mistake and he needs to move on quick and not think about what happened in the next few days or the next week."

In the wake of Tottenham's defeat, their eighth successive FA Cup semi-final loss, Pochettino raised eyebrows when he said "with me or another" when talking about his club's plan going forward.

Some dissected that comment as a warning to chairman Daniel Levy, but the boss insisted there was nothing sinister about it.

"For me I am going to say the same, Tottenham is doing a fantastic job, developing an amazing project.

"Only I wanted to tell you that it's a long-term project, that is not going to change with us or another coaching staff.

"But it's because it's so strong the project at Tottenham. It's not a message to send to someone, it was only was the context of the question and I explained.

"The project is so strong and we believe in this project. The club cannot behave like different clubs.

"I think that the project that we created all together, the club needs to keep going, pushing on together in this direction trying to achieve all the things that the club wants.

"It's not a message for someone. It was what I feel and what I told you."