Dele Alli: The sad reality

In the build-up to Tottenham Hotspur’s Europa League fixture against LASK, Jose Mourinho was asked, again, to talk about one specific player’s future.

“One thing is me understanding the players, another thing is the players situation”. Mourinho discussed how there is more substance to reasons behind Dele Alli’s playing time at Tottenham.

Alli is a fantastic footballer, first and foremost. Plus, he is still young. Even though it may feel like he has been around for a while, he still has many years of football left to play. Impressively, he has managed to develop into a talismanic figure at Tottenham, despite not coming through the Club’s academy.

Alli’s previous goals and assists numbers have undoubtedly helped gain him popularity with many Spurs fans. But he has also shown desire and aggression on the pitch, which is what supporters had associated and liked about the 24-year-old. What remains to be clear is to why he has struggled with consistency over the past two seasons. The sad reality is there are many ‘talents’ who are not becoming the players that many perceive them to be.

Before we draw on Alli’s performances under José Mourinho, let us remind ourselves of his form throughout Mauricio Pochettino’s final year at Spurs. Following Alli’s heavily criticised performance in the 2-1 defeat to Liverpool during the 2019-20 campaign, Pochettino stuck by his player and selected him for the following match versus Everton at Goodison Park.

Alli showed both his qualities and weaknesses in that game against the Toffees, as he was able to on the scoresheet but the Spurs player’s lack of work off the ball had ultimately led to a late goal and the match finishing 1-1. The latter part may be harsh, as there were many players at fault for the equaliser and the away side were down to ten men.

Regardless, Alli’s goal was fantastic. A misplaced pass found its way to Heung-min Son, who slid a through ball into the path of his teammate. Alli cut onto his right foot, skipped past the defender and then struck the ball into the bottom corner. Clear evidence of his goal scoring abilities and the celebration was clear evidence of his personality.

Putting his index finger up to his lips, Alli was shushing his critics from the previous weeks. A textbook goal and celebration from the Englishman. The Spurs fans could feel the relief of their attacking midfielder from the stands. Well, until the home side equalised in the 97^th minute.

Mourinho got appointed a few weeks later. Alli’s reaction to a new manager looked positive. Not only did he assist in a goal within Mourinho’s first match against West Ham, but he displayed a piece of skill only a player of his quality could manoeuvre.

Then Harry Kane and Son developed injuries, so Mourinho looked at his other big players, like Alli, to help them secure a finish within a European spot, which they were able to do when they pipped Wolverhampton Wanderers to a sixth place finish on the final day. Since then, Alli has not featured consistently. So, what has changed?

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It has been well documented that Mourinho was a fan of Alli and was recommended in signing him for Manchester United by Sir Alex Ferguson, during the Portuguese manager’s tenure with the Red Devils. It is also public knowledge that Mourinho addressed Alli’s lack of work rate in training, which you can find in the Spurs documentary on Amazon Prime.

Along with public praise for Alli, it is very possible that Mourinho had given specific treatment to his player. It felt as though Mourinho was trying to reignite the hunger and desire within Alli that would ultimately help his team win football matches and gain influential players on the new managers’ side. Team Mourinho.

Now, we are only a month away from the January transfer window and there is growing speculation that Alli could be moving onto another club. It looks as though Mourinho’s attempt to ‘manage’ Alli has not worked out in the way he had hoped.

There have been many reports on Mourinho freezing out players, world-class players too, but the situation with Alli feels different. Kevin De Bruyne, Mohamed Salah and Juan Mata, it could be argued, did not have the opportunity to showcase their qualities under Mourinho.

However, Alli has had those opportunities. He has played enough football over the past year, within his favoured position, to convince his manager that he deserves to be a guaranteed starter. For whatever reason he has not been able to show this like he did during Pochettino’s managerial reign. The circumstances appear similar to his playing time within the national side.

Gareth Southgate’s England team is full of creative players, which would seem like a good fit for a unique goalscoring midfielder, like Alli. But as other players from his class, like Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling and Marcus Rashford have cemented their spot for both club and country, it is with hope that Alli does not fall by the wayside as many other young ‘talents’ have done in the past.

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