Yeah exactly. He’s not primarily a creative 10, doesn’t appear to have the work rate of someone like GLC in that position, and though he could re-learn a deeper role because he did that at MK, we’ve got a lot of options there now and I’m not sure he offers the passing range to make it work. I’d be sad to see him go in a way, and I’m sure there’s still an excellent player there somewhere, but he’s not going to show enough of that under Jose IMO, just as he didn’t under the later years of Poch.
Jose definitely ****ed up with Salah and de Bruyne but I feel they were in a different scenario to Dele. Both were relatively unproven at the time and could never get the trust of Jose, they’ve now shown Jose that he should’ve had more faith in them. Dele on the other hand has been at the club for years now and when Jose first came in you could tell he tried working on Dele both physically and mentally to get him back to the level he once showed. He got him playing some great football again for about 4 or so weeks but then he reverted back to the form he’d been showing under Poch for too long. For me I think Dele’s just somewhat lost his way, got too focused on his brand image whilst his troubles with his on/ off girlfriend probably didn’t help but right now I don’t think anyone can honestly look at Dele and say he’s a key player like he used to be. I think Jose needs to take a leaf out of Poch’s book when Poch first joined. In that 14/15 season he dropped and eventually sold so many underperformers to begin his rebuild. There’s a good handful of players here that are now like the Kaboul/ Capoue/ Adebayor etc of that era and for me, Dele is one of them. Thanks to the business we’ve done this window (hopefully to be bettered with Skriniar and a striker) we’ve now got the basis of a great first XI again and so it’s an ideal opportunity to begin dropping and then selling and replacing the squad players that just aren’t good enough in the upcoming windows after this.
Dele just needs to outlast Jose. Jose won’t be Spurs manager long term. Spurs aren’t good enough or rich enough to be discarding players like Dele Alli. Yeah he’s been off his game for too long but there’s still a top player in there somewhere
A loan to PSG might work Mainly because for the next round of "What trophies have Spurs' players won?" we can presumably add the customary Ligue 1/Coup de France double to the already long list
But where? Two top managers have now failed to get the best out of him for roughly 3 years now. Any other top manager in world football would’ve done what Jose has now done - and they probably would’ve done it sooner too. Jose came in and tried giving Dele a second wind and he never really took it despite a promising start. Personally as fans of the club I don’t think we can bemoan poor performances and results but then say we need to persist with the very players who are contributing towards those.
But are we rich enough or good enough to persist with a player who is struggling and who doesn’t look a good fit for the team when we have holes elsewhere in the squad that need filling? I’m not writing off the rest of his career by any means but I don’t think he’s going to recover under Jose just as he couldn’t under Poch.
Dele may have lost his way but he still contributes more than some of the dross currently stinking out our squad, those who will never improve. Form is temporary, class is permanent as they say.
Class that does not translate into consistent form is the equivalent of "on-paper wealth" . Alli has a translation gap of 3 seasons.
We do seem to jumping to conclusions about Deles absence being about him leaving when it may be that Sons injury has opened up a place for him on Thursday and Jose has decided that no one will be involved tonight who is needed on Thursday. Personally I would love him to be the player we thought he was going to be 3 years ago, but I am with DH he has shown very few signs that he has the desire to push on again,. I have said before that a loan may allow him to get his mojo back, but if getting a fee for him this week ensured that Skriniar, Milic and King arrived then that would have to be a step in the right direction.
I cannot think of a player the standard and age of Dele who has gone out on loan and returned to their parent club the better for it and stayed
Come next monday we will know who in the incumbent squad will be deemed by Jose to be performing to the levels required.
Makeshift or what lol Reguilon debut. Looks like a back three and presumably Lamela and Bergwijn as the forwards.
Good to see Japhet back and it’ll be interesting to see Regulion. Unsure about the back 3 tbh though.
A stronger team than I expected in all honesty thought that Tanguy would be saved for Thursday but I think it gives us a chance, a couple of players with something to prove too who might rise to the occasion. I hope we have trained for a while with the 3 at the back as its not a formation he have had much luck with in the past. Just got a feeling that they will win by the odd goal probably a Werner penalty.
