Tottenham’s Dele Alli Charged with Violent Conduct
If Tottenham’s draw against West Bromwich Albion was bad, having Dele Alli potentially miss the rest of the season is worse.
For as talented as Dele Alli is, the 20-year-old seems to have some anger issues. If Alli can’t get some help in controlling his emotions it could hurt his career moving forward when teams will constantly target him because he can’t restrain himself.
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Alli isn’t a violent guy. He’s not the kind of person who would punch someone, stomp on them, drag his foot over a person’s back or throw the ball at someone’s face unless he was provoked. Which unfortunately, he has had a hand (and foot) in these four incidents.
Dele Alli seems to let his emotions get the better of him and he winds up in awkward situations where his actions could have been easily avoided in the first place.
It’s becoming even more apparent that Alli has yet to draw the line between having a nasty streak and never backing down, while not doing anything foolish.
The punch to West Brom’s Claudio Yacob’s stomach during the 26th minute in last night’s match was not only missed by referee Mike Jones, but also on the NBCSN’s live game feeds. But that wasn’t enough to escape the Football Association who intervened with a different camera angle and charged the 20-year-old midfielder.
According to Sky Sports this is how the FA handles these incidents.
“Off-the-ball incidents which are not seen at the time by the match officials are referred to a panel of three former elite referees.”
“Each referee panel member will review the video footage independently of one another to determine whether they consider it a sending-off offence. For retrospective action to be taken, and an FA charge to follow, the decision of the panel must be unanimous.”
“Alli has until 6pm on Wednesday, April 27, to reply to the charge.”
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Was Yacob trying to provoke Alli? Anger him?
Claudio Yacob could have very well done these things after Dele Alli has had similar incidents which were mentioned above. The only difference was that he wasn’t caught until now.
Now, it’s no surprise that Mauricio Pochettino, Alli’s teammates and Spurs’ supporters will defend the England international’s actions — and they should.
But at the same time, they should all be disappointed that this kind of meaningless thing happened in the first place.
Here’s what Pochettino had to say regarding the incident. “I hear some comments but I have no time to see the action,” said Mauricio Pochettino after Dele Alli punched Claudio Yacob (quotes via The Guardian).
“Sometimes the opponent find him and try to provoke, they know he has a strong character and may react.”
“I don’t know what has happened, we will see. I have nothing to comment now but Dele has a strong character if you wind him up.”
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At the end of the day, if provoked, people will retaliate and it’s human nature for Dele Alli to respond the way he did. It’s just unfortunate it could be a big blemish to a successful season in which the 20-year-old won the PFA Young Player of the Year award this past weekend and was named on the PFA Team of the Year.
Yes, being provoked could have been the main reason why Alli decided to take action into his own hands. But in doing so, he has hurt himself and most importantly, his team who are already close to losing the Premier League title to Leicester City.