You've mixed up a lot of shit here.You first go all out and explain how people are looking things in overly simplistic fashion, and it should not be done.
And then you don't do just 180 degrees but more like 2x360 degrees and 180 degrees on top of that, and claim that it was all just Mourinho. Player are actually great champs and this is rejuvinated team we are seeing now. And you base this on performances against long-ago relegated team + narrow win over team that is also in bottom 25% in the league. While against City the whole collective was appallingly pathetic. Drenched in loser mentality. No courage. No fight. It was an absolute horrorshow.
What. The. Fuck.
Dele was very-very average and part of things absolutely falling apart in Poch last 12-18 months. 2018/19 saw massive drop in output from Alli. But hey, it is all Mourinho effect, right! Guess Dele saw him coming for a while.
I would not even go into Bergwijn issue again. I have lost count on times I've read laughable claims like he wouldn't be instructed to attack or whatnot. His attacking performance has just been poor. He has not been able to find a net throughout the season, and some are desperately trying to claim that it has been fully down on Mou and his instructions. That sounds so extremely unrealistic.
What consideres Ndombele - he was in and out. As was he under Poch. In start of Mou reign he got some critique. At some point this season he was unplayable and undroppable - played some brilliant football. Yet at the end of Mou era, he faded badly again. So with him as well - jury is still out there, and I find that his personal performances in last 2 months of Mou time also deserve some criticism, while his peak-form - also under Mou - deserves praise.
In regards of Dele - I will not say 100% this nor 100% that. I hope he starts contributing to team success in the future. That would be welcomed to me as a Spurs fan. At the same time I also understand that his skill-set and way of playing have some major flaws as well. It can still go one way or another. But to claim that his weak performances in past 3 (!!) seasons would be down on Mou, who was here for less than 1,5 seasons - does not seem to be a balanced opinion.
1. Dele under Poch was brilliant
2. Dele's performances under the latter stages of Poch's reign are viewed by many as really poor. They weren't, they were DIFFERENT, he played a much, much deeper role (not where his main talents are but a role he played for the team to plug a dying and decaying central midfield with both Wanyamma and Dembele struggling for fitness and form. We basically went from one of the best central midfielders to not having one at all. I've consistently argued this since it was happening, many of those I argued with at the time didn't even realise he was asked to play a withdrawn and deeper role as they screamed that he's no long scoring or involved in the build-up enough. It's all there in black and white in this very thread and only goes on to serve my view that these people really don't have a very good view on what's going on in the game, what players individual instructions are, many pundits unfortunately do the same, whilst not watching Spurs every week you would have thought they would do the very basic of research before they speak, hey ho, Embarrassing!)
3. If you want to extrapolate my views on Spurs, it's managers and players over the last 7yrs then WTF!!! I'll help you out though:
a) Poch was great - I loved his football
b) Last 18months of his reign there were struggles, biggest of all the challenges that compromised how he wants his teams to play was the loss of Wanyamma and Dembele in CM, compromises had to be found, we really struggled (there were loads of other things we can add, some include Poch himself) but feel this is the biggest and also most relevant to the topic of Dele. By dropping him deeper we basically lost his pressing, we stopped winning the ball high up the pitch, we became a mid-block team (I also think not having a summer break re the world cup accelerated this and compounded with the general overall fitness of the team during that post-world cup season).
c) Mourinho was a disaster for Spurs from the moment he was appointed. Shit football. Shit man-management. Shit tactics. He's sucked the soul out of this Club.
d) Mourinho has outcast Dele. Fact.
e) Mourinho has had a detrimental effect on all players with the exception of Lloris, Kane, Son & Lucas (loads of nuance around him, let's not go there). But specifically on Dele he was never going to play him because his football is not possession-based football, it's from a bygone era. Secondly, it enables him to pull the trick of binning off big-name players to strut his power-crazed, ego-fueled, out of date management style. Guess what? he's been sacked as a direct result, Dele has outlasted the relic!
f) I've also been consistent in choosing to NOT slate any individual player whilst we had Mourinho in charge. These also extend to signalling out the defence or midfield or attack. It simply doesn't hold up whilst he was in charge doing such a poor job in a) preparing the team b) coaching the team c) the tactics. IT IS POINTLESS CRITIQUING INDIVIDUAL PLAYERS UNDER MOURINHO d) playing directly into the hands of what might be a perceived weakness, or what actually could be argued as a strength (yes our defence, if organised properly and not asked to defend for 90mins is actually pretty damn good).
f) In a low-block Tottenham I would NOT pick Dele! There is no position for him in a low-block Spurs.
So back to Dele:
1) He has always been a player since the day he broke into the side, a player that losing the ball a lot. A player that miss-places the ball a lot. A player that misses lots of chances in front of a goal. None of this mattered though because he scored and assisted a ton of goals.
2) His goals and assists was all that was spoken about him (and his temperament, which for me has always been excellent), not his third man runs, not his pressing, not his ability to link play, not his ability to create space.
3) So the moment his assists and goals drop off, BECAUSE HE'S NO LONGER PLAYING AS A 2ND STRIKER, the focus remains on assists and goal contributions declining = he's declining! Bollocks!
4) He was deployed differently in his first 3 seasons by Poch (so too was Kane) but both were still attackers, Still pressing high up the pitch without the ball. But the moment we lost our CM we also lost our Dele, our press, our thrid man runs, our ability to keep the ball high up the pitch (and yes that still includes when he loses possession through his passing, a flick that didn't come off, a lost tackle, whatever. If we counter-pressed off this then our attacks were far, far better as a consequence - To quote Klopp"No playmaker in the world can be as good as a good counter-pressing situation.”).
5) People remain fixated purely on the assist or goal, to such a point they didn't even notice he was playing deep.
6) People are still doing the similar now, just look at the comments in the match thread, people actually thought he did nothing and should have been hooked!!! Seriously this shows such a staggeringly poor take on football it's truly unbelievable. He was one of the main reasons we played in the oppo tertiary. He was one of the main reasons we pressed to opp high, in an intelligent manner, not luck a bunch of kids when he attempted to do similar under Mourinho (including Dele, when selected, which emphasis just how shit the coaching was and why it's pointless taking aim at individual players because they are following the instructions of the coach).