Celebrating the signing of his replacement. You can fault Moura for a lot of things, but his cheerleading for the club isn't one of them.
Wishing Dele all the best with his brave comments. I know some of this has been in the public domain before, but I hope talking about it will help with a fuller recovery Dele Alli: footballer says he was sexually abused and dealing drugs as a child | Dele Alli | The Guardian
I literally just got finished watching it, very powerful interview. I think it’ll massively help many people both in and out of the sport to seek help and change. Good on him. Though he’s absolutely spot on that the media will take one or words and run with a headline for clickbait, as proven by them all going with the sexually abused part which was only about 15 seconds worth of talk in the segment.
Could’ve easily ran with something like “Dele sits down with Gary Neville for inspiring interview to discuss his struggles and rehab that’ll help thousands” but no, they’ll mention the ghastly fact he was abused as a child to draw the clicks. Media really are scum.
Scum tabloids were already pestering his friends and family once they knew he was in rehab. Bastards! That interview was insightful and I hope ends up being a positive move for him above all else. He seems to be in a much better place and if he can transfer that internal positivity back into his game then I honestly believe he could return to the heights as a player. Just won't be an easy or necessarily instant journey. Mind you, anyone who has been through what he has to get to 27 is probably able to accept that. From a Spurs perspective, it was heartening to hear his praise of Poch and his team, together with those named teammates: Dier, Son, Kane and Davies. TBH those are the lads I would expect to be there, taking responsibility. Top pros and top people. Only wish him the best and I really hope he gets his mental and physical levels back and it works out for him at Everton this season. But if he achieves the first two, but needs to move back to London then I can't help thinking a fit and focused Dele would potentially still be a good fit for this new Spurs outfit.
I don’t wanna predict how he’ll turn out as a player from here, obviously I’d love him to reach his old form but I have said over the years I did feel Dembele and Eriksen helped get the best out of him and we certainly don’t have a Dembele anymore (though in Maddison we have an Eriksen) but if he wanted to return to Spurs then I agree, in this setup and system with Ange, I’d be very open to having him back. Even if as a squad player, there are far worse options than a (hopefully) motivated and mentally sound Dele.
Also with Toby, given how often one of his chipped passes from the back found Dele breaking through the opponent's defence
So, if you include Eric Dier, who also used to link very well with him, that means there's at least 5 players who possibly got the best out of him. Maybe, Dele should be getting some credit for having got the best out of them?
Bale combined with Modric would probably be the best player of all time. Pace, goals, passing, anticipation, vision, crossing, tackling, aerial ability, superb work ethic, tough as nails, stamina, fitness. The list is endless.
And both come from countries with populations of less than 4m. Croatia's really punched above it's weight in recent years.
It's the thing about how the Yugoslav football system was set up: academies were set up in certain areas (i.e. Zagreb, Split, Rijeka and Osijek in what is now Croatia, Belgrade and Vojvodina in what is now Serbia) which at the time of Yugoslavia worked - but when Yugoslavia broke up Serbia and Croatia had all the advantages for having top class academies in place in key cities, countries like Slovenia or Bosnia had just enough with similar academies in Ljubljana and Maribor or Sarajevo and Mostar respectively (although a lot of Bosnian players come through academies at German or Austrian clubs these days) but Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia had to start more or less from scratch It's similar to the former Soviet Union having academies set up in places like Moscow, St Petersburg, Volgograd, Kyiv, Tbilisi, Minsk etc, but bugger all for large swathes of the country, which is now numerous countries scattered between two continents
