What to do with Dele Alli?

Once heralded as one of England’s most promising young talent, now Dele Alli finds himself in perhaps the lowest point of his entire career. The 24-year-old has been frozen out by manager Jose Mourinho and he is in a very complicated situation where his future is heavily in doubt plus not getting a fair amount of opportunities at his current club. So what can Dele Alli do? Is his future somewhere else?

It seems that it was ages ago when Dele Alli was one of the most promising talents in Europe and heralded to be one of the English Premier League’s finest players. But now in 2021, we’re in a position that is certainly sad: Dele Alli is hardly playing at Tottenham and he has been frozen out by Jose Mourinho since the team’s opening game against Everton this season.

It is hard to determine when things went south between Dele Alli and Mourinho, but the reality is that the former England international has been struggling to get playing time and that has been a running theme throughout the season, regardless of the team’s struggles when Harry Kane and Son are not producing the goods in difficult games. Of course, when the January transfer window arrived, there was a lot of talk of Dele Alli leaving the club, at least on a loan deal. There was a lot of talk of Paris Saint Germain, having the opportunity to join once again with his former manager and the man that helped him explode as a player, Mauricio Pochettino. But that didn’t happen and with the transfer window close to an end, Dele Alli is a crossroad in his career.

Time is key in a professional player’s career and you have to get the most out of your career while you can. Dele Alli wasting an entire year of his career could have a lot of negative consequences in his future and he will continue to lose the momentum he once had as a player. But this isn’t just about Jose’ Mourinho not using him. Dele Alli lost a lot of focus as he got more successful in the game and he is started to believe his own hype, to the point he was a lot more focused on things that had nothing to do with football rather than trying to improve. This was something that Mauricio Pochettino hinted at in an appearance the Argentinian manager did at Sky Sports a few months ago when talking about Dele Alli.

It is going to be interesting to see what is going to happen with Dele Alli’s career in the coming years and see if he is capable of turning things around. He is only 24-year-old and he is still talented enough to make a grand comeback. And all football fans would enjoy that.