So the question is, what has happened to Dele Ali (and to a lesser extent Harry Kane) ? Up until he got a ban last season he was like the second coming of Gascoigne. Since then he has lost his mojo good and proper. He was non-existent at the Euros, and aside from a goal against Man City which was fairly straight forward he has been on his summer break this season. Have all the accolades gone to his head ? If he wants to be the player that everyone is saying he can be then he needs to realise that football doesn't stand still, so if you do then you will quickly get left behind. Stop dining off your good 6 months Dele, or the boat will leave without you. If you want to be another Gazzza then you need to study his early career and you will see he never took his foot off the gas until he did his knee. Become the player you can be as soon as you can, because there is always someone waiting in the wings to replace you
The obvious issue is that, for our main run of form, we had Kane up front with Alli behind him - yet Hodgson in his infinite wisdom decided it would be far more effective to have Rooney behind Kane and stick Alli wherever there was a free spot in the starting xi, meaning that an effective pairing was broken up and in its place was a balding Shrek lookalike who seemed to be disinterested in passing to his teammates or playing in the position/role he was assigned. Similarly, the decision to have Kane take free kicks and corners - something he doesn't do at club level, so why Hodgson decided he should do so for England is a question that scholars will never find a satisfying answer to - is something else that showed that Roy Hodgson was the first manager in the past two seasons to render Kane ineffective...which would have been something to be proud of if he was an opposing manager, not so much when he's the manager who's expected to get the most of him. Kane getting singled out by the media for all of England's failings certainly didn't help either. When there were headlines such as Drop Kane, win the game going about (but not Play Wilshere, get nowhere or Play Hart, expect brainfart or any other wordplay for pretty much anyone in the squad not named Walker, Rose or Dier) it's going to have a negative effect.
OP : Dele Alli heard you loud and clear this afternoon. Is there anything else you wish from him this month ?? My wish is for him and other Spurs players to be nowhere near the toxic England set-up.
Kane's problem has been burnout, he's played a crazy amount of games since his breakthrough and hasn't had a rest over a summer in two years what with the U21s and then the Euros. He'll come good when he returns, he excels in about 25 league games in between the start and end of a season and the fact we have Janssen still trying to find his feet and Son to play in the striker roles, it'll allows us more rotation in his position to give him better rest time. As for Alli, I think too much has been made of his poor Euros. Yes he was poor but so was 90% of the England squad, the only players that done themselves justice in my opinion were Lallana, Rose and Walker but with a manager like Roy Hodgson managing a team of great potential with his outdated ideas, it was only ever going to end badly, wasn't it? Alli hasn't been at his best so far this season (today and Stoke aside) but he's not been dreadful like he was under Woy in France, there's no other midfield talent like him at the moment and the fact he's still only 20 years old means he has an insane amount of time to improve, both physically and mentally.
I make it that this was posted 15 minutes after Alli scored and was in the process of handing City a football lesson. Great timing . Oh and btw he is 20 years old. If he didn't have the odd dip in form/confidence at that age, he wouldn't be human.
All players experience dips in form, especially the younger ones. The ones with character and determination come back stronger. Alli set some kind of record for hard work yesterday, surely a sign he's one of the good ones.
Well he certainly didn't hand out any lessons, so I wonder what match you were actually watching. However, as you say, he is only 20. My concern is merely for a gifted young English player, as so many of them fade out after a promising start. I don't really care about what he does for Tottenham, but I do care what he does for England
And nowadays some of us think the converse. In fact, that + worry about what England do to Spurs players while on duty.
I think that this has more to do with the England set up than anything that Alli's doing, I'm afraid. Rubbish managerial appointments and dull, uninspiring team selections seem to do a lot of damage.
On sort of the same theme, I dislike the early rounds of the Europa because the level of play is lower, and it seems to dull players' edge, quite aside from tiring them out and leading to injuries.
Well if he's does **** for Tottenham, then surely he'll be just as poor for England (if selected) so shouldn't the concern should go hand in glove?
Gazza ? Where on earth did you get that from ? He has never been, and never will be, half the footballer gascoigne was, and nobody that i have seen, has claimed that he is !
Nobody can touch Gazza today.That was one special player.I did see him cry after a defeat....that's desire. I did see someone bite......I guess he was a hungry player.Do they feed 'em on Merseyside?
Think Alli is completely different to Gazza. Though I do believe Alli can go on to great things, I see him as the best prospect the country's had ever since we all thought Rooney would go on to be one of the best in the world.
As others have said, he's young and inconsistency is to be expected. It's also much easier to play well when the team around you is playing well. England did not play well during the Euros and our attack hasn't been all that good so far this season, apart from Son. It was the same for Sterling, he was great when Liverpool were free scoring and playing well in the Slip season but after that he struggled until the start of this season when City were brilliant and so was Sterling. With England the problem for both Kane and Alli is that they have been misused. Alli played all his best football for us as a number 10, it suits him as it gives him more opportunities to get the ball in dangerous areas, where he's best. For England at the Euros he had to play deeper, in a 433 which meant he was getting the ball earlier, which doesn't suit him. With Kane, he's played his best football with a number 10 feeding him and the freedom to drift out to the flanks. 433 takes that away from him and that's what we played at the Euros. We also created very few chances for our strikers at the Euros which didn't help. The only ones that spring to mind are Vardy's chances against Slovakia and Sturridge's goal against Wales(which I think Alli created fwiw). Vardy's goal against Wales was thanks to Williams heading the ball to him 5 yards out, Rooney scored from the spot against Iceland and Dier scored a freekick against Russia. As an England fan, I'm optimistic about the quality we have at our disposal, we've got a number of good players, the problem we have is that we don't play them in a way that suits them. We've got 2 quality 'keepers(Hart and Butland), 5 good attacking fullbacks(Walker, Clyne, Rose, Shaw, Bertrand), we've got 2 quality number 10s(lallana and Alli) and we've got a host of great strikers(Kane, Sturridge, Vardy, Rashford). We're a bit weak for depth in other areas, with not many options after Dier as DM, Sterling on the left and a lot of fairly average choices for centre backs, centre mids and right wing. That's still a good starting point though and far worse sides have done better than us in international competitions, the difference is that they are organised and play a system that will get the most out of their players.
Just need to reinstate Glenn Hoddle as manager and we could make the most of the talent that we have, alternatively we can stick with Southgate and waste the talent again. But hey ho, the political correct FA know best.