Dissecting Dele Alli’s Day for Tottenham Against Wolfsberger
By Aaron Coe
What was not Great for Dele and Tottenham
Dele Alli was better than worse against Wolfsberger, but he was not perfect in his time on the pitch. None of these issues ultimately hurt Spurs on the evening, but they are examples of the kind of things José Mourinho does not tolerate and ultimately do not help the team.
Dele went down far too easy all night
Dele Alli takes a lot of abuse when he gets on the ball as many players do. Dele is often looking for that pressure and playing off of it. Some days this leads to fouls and others it just leads to a lot of Dele on the ground. Thursday was a day where Dele was on the ground far more times than he was fouled during the match.
In fact Dele committed more fouls – three – than he took – two. I am not accusing or saying that Dele dives, but he does need to work to stay on his feet more. In other words, he needs to be tougher to tackle.
If he is on his feet more and down less often, maybe a few of the calls he is not currently getting will go his way. Until he is back in the side and doing good things he should not expect to get the same calls he got three or four years ago, as he is not currently a star and should not expect that treatment.
Sometimes when Dele is not getting the call or when he is not getting the ball, we see his temper. I only can recall on instance where he really seemed to get on Son early in the match and then a couple of times where he gave a big glare to the ref. As a player who was on a yellow after a poor foul late in the first half, staring down the referee does not help.
Dele is not a player who will get these calls or always get the ball right now, he needs to stick his head down and keep playing.
Dele needs to finish the job
Never known as a player who played for 90 minutes under Mauricio Pochettino and in an attacking, pressing, running position probably should not be, Dele needs to play hard every minute he is on the pitch. While some of the lack of pressure in the second half was the switch of Vinicius and Son who are just different players, Dele did not help Vinny a ton either.
The pressure and press to get on the ball and cause problems through a bit of defense just seemed to disappear during much of Dele and the teams’ second half. That changed as some fresh legs came on. Again, Dele does not need to go 90, but he needs to keep pushing and doing the things that make him special or he simply will not be special.
Bottom line for Dele Alli and Tottenham
The bottom line is that Tottenham Hotspur need Dele Alli and frankly as a young professional footballer Dele Alli needs Tottenham. If Dele can work to consistently do some of the things that he flashed Thursday, which used to make him special he likely has a place in the squad moving forward. However, if what we get is half effort, dirty scowls, and poor fouls well Dele will be back in the dog house.
Our guess is that moving forward we will see the best from Dele as he knows now is his chance to get things right.