Release the Dele

It’s interesting how things can often pan out. Dele Alli was the form player for Jose Mourinho when the not so special one first took control of Spurs. The lad was on fire, assisting and scoring. He was involved, an energy force for forward play for his team mates and leading that line, invading the space in the final third. Then the cracks appeared. Mourinho calling him lazy, in training and then critical again with performances. Dele had a vocal moan caught on camera in the Amazon documentary All or Nothing. And then slowly slowly, Dele faded from first team sight. So what happened?

Sometimes I wonder what Jose was thinking. What his intentions were considering that even Alex Ferguson suggested to him to sign Dele when Jose was at Manchester United. I’m glad that never happened, perhaps Mourinho was distracted by something at the time, talking of which check out this website to be momentarily distracted for the better.

We can’t know for certain but if your manager is playing the tough love angle attempting to ignite a a spark then there has to be a viable conclusion to the lesson. But there wasn’t and Dele got buried further and further into obscurity during the course of the season. Mourinho love to target players, make examples of them. It seems to be this demented trick from his playbook to perhaps sacrifice someone so that others are some how inspired by it. Er…yeah, that doesn’t work.

Dele isn’t just popular with his team mates but also the supporters and the crazy thing is, he’s the type of player that Mourinho should have built his team around (well one of many to be fair). Hear me out. Dele at his very best was that time just after his bout of spitefulness that was too edgy for most to handle. Pochettino got him to control his anger but then also had him playing across midfield and deeper roles, which perhaps subdued his capacity to truly irritate the opposition defenders. Surely the core DNA make-up of Dele would be a perfect fit for the king of provocation, Mr Mourinho? Surely he could get Dele back to doing what Dele does best – playing just behind Harry Kane and in that space, tucked between the last line of defence and the attacking midfield.

Get in there, spread and invade. Annoy the hell out of the defenders. But alas no. Jose culled him. Contained him. Boxed him and stuck him away. Made him ineffectual by playing him in nothing games in Europe every so often. It’s criminal. Now we have Dele back playing and Bale has always proved that if he plays he can influence proceedings.

Perhaps the best thing Daniel Levy has done is not force the sale of Dele that Mourinho wanted.

We have ballers at Tottenham, we really do. But we’ve chosen to chain them up. It’s time we correct the errors we’ve made. Their punishment has been our punishment. Time to be released.