Dele Alli revealed he spoke with Raheem Sterling after the Tottenham midfielder was on the end of a nasty challenge from his England teammate on Sunday.
Sterling escaped with a yellow card for a studs-up challenge on Alli early on in Spurs' 2-0 win over Manchester City in the Premier League.
Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho expressed his disappointment with the VAR decision not to dismiss Sterling for the challenge in the 12th minute.
"The game started immediately with the wrong decision," Mourinho said. "It's a red card, it's a direct red card to Sterling.
"I know that Mike Dean has a difficult job. He's on the pitch and it's 200 miles an hour. I wouldn't like to be a referee because it's so difficult.
"Sometimes I try in training sessions and I realise that it's too difficult. So for me Mike Dean, good performance. The problem is the VAR."
However, Alli refused to criticise Sterling and said there was no malice in the challenge.
"I haven’t had a proper look back at it, it’s up to the ref and the VAR to make the decision and they didn’t give the red card so there’s nothing I can do," Alli said.
"We were just chatting about it, obviously he wasn’t in the best of moods because they lost and he’s a winner. We haven’t seen each other for a while so it was just a little catch-up.
"He’s a good friend of mine and I know he never would have done it intentionally. It’s football and those things happen, I know it was nothing intentional and he’s not a player like that."
