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Dele Alli

nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
He couldnt buy a foul yesterday, despite getting kicked all over the place. You could see after a while he knew no matter what he did he wasnt going to get anything.
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That is often the case when you get a reputation as a diver. Ali has earned that reputation quite fairly IMO, some of his dives over the past year or so have been embarrassing.

I thought he was shocking yesterday. Dembele was rubbish, Dier was rubbish, Son was rubbish - but Ali outdid them all by a decent margin. On numerous occasions we got the ball to him in good areas as we were breaking, just about every time he managed to lose the ball while trying to beat a player (often needlessly trying to beat him as well). How Pochettino left him on I have no idea. There were many players who deserved to get subbed yesterday, but he was by far and away the most deserving.
 
He has a deserved reputation, at which point I would expect marginal calls to go against him - however that wasnt what I was talking about. SCBC were free to just kick him, shove him and foul him to stop him playing. The ref did fudge all about it.

In fact the ref was very poor full stop. How Dembele went so long without a yellow I still dont know.

As to Allis performance, I dont think it was as bad as is being made out. Just as Son was anonymous, they really had nothing to work with in attack, did they?

Not saying he was great, but when he has no options what is he supposed to do?
 
nayimfromthehalfwayline said:
He has a deserved reputation, at which point I would expect marginal calls to go against him - however that wasnt what I was talking about. SCBC were free to just kick him, shove him and foul him to stop him playing. The ref did fudge all about it.

In fact the ref was very poor full stop. How Dembele went so long without a yellow I still dont know.

As to Allis performance, I dont think it was as bad as is being made out. Just as Son was anonymous, they really had nothing to work with in attack, did they?

Not saying he was great, but when he has no options what is he supposed to do?
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I thought he was terrible. He was given a free role by Poch and as a result of having no defensive duty he received the ball in good attacking areas on numerous occasions. A player given a free role has to make more of those opportunities. I thought his poor decision making put a stop to a majority of our good attacking moments yesterday.
 
As is your prerogative.

I dont think he was especially good, but I dont think he was especially bad either, and in particular I dont think the ref helped him at all, nor did our completely dull midfield.
 
GinolaGinolaGinola said:
Even when he scores now he hardly celebrates. He looks a misery on the pitch. He’s changing agents so to me looks like someone who is looking to find another club. If he said he wanted to leave there would be a load of the top clubs after him.

Next time he scores let’s see what his celebration looks like. He’s already given us 2 years and this is his 3rd so wouldn’t be unheard of if he was to go.
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What I mean though is where the hell is he gonna go?

I don't mean this in a horrible way but Alli is at the right level right now. I think he has huge potential, he can be a very good player. He has an incredible knack for scoring, being at the right place at the right time.

But there are quite a few deficiencies in his game. Quite a few glaring ones. As expected for a young player of course. But these are deficiencies which will be ruthlessly exposed and attacked at a huge club. He won't be able to get away with how he plays at Real Madrid or Barcelona. He doesn't have the creativity to play as an attacking midfielder for these kinds of clubs.

This isn't a kneejerk reaction to his recent form, even when he was scoring left, right and centre, I always said he is at the right level of club and will not fit in yet at the likes of Real/Barca etc.

I don't see where he moves to tbh, currently anyway. This isn't a Modric, a Bale, Berbatov, Kane, Eriksen etc, all of whom I could totally see playing at a club of that level. Alli...not quite yet.
 
Agree with that @Hootnow - he has great potential but is still far away from being the all round player that elite clubs will break the bank for - and if i was to muse on the attitude of fans towards him atm it seems it has already been decided that he is going to leave/force a move and so any support for him has gone out the window
 
billyiddo said:
Agree with that @Hootnow - he has great potential but is still far away from being the all round player that elite clubs will break the bank for - and if i was to muse on the attitude of fans towards him atm it seems it has already been decided that he is going to leave/force a move and so any support for him has gone out the window
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His brand value far exceeds his ability at the moment and we all know how ManU feel about that stuff.
 
He should look at Thomas Mueller at Bayern. Doesn't need to nutmeg 10 players per game, just arrives and pokes it in the goal, nice and ugly, goal after goal.

Alli has the same engine, frame, talent for arriving late, just poke it in the net, stop trying to be Ronaldinho, you are NOT Ronaldinho.



Reading Poch's book I was very encouraged to hear players say "I thought I did OK, then Poch called me in and showed me a video of 20 times in the last game when I did the wrong thing". This is exactly what Alli needs, a video to show all the great moments we developed... which were quickly ruined by indulgent play.
 
Unbelievable last couple of pages.
All I can say is, thank goodness Poch is the manager.

Against Everton he produced an excellent, gritty performance capped off by a world-class touch to set up Eriksen. Yesterday he overran the ball a few times yer repeatedly tried to make things happen, NEVER hid and ALWAYS looked to create/try to create. Several times he looked to play a quick pass and the runner was offside. He didn't have his most outstanding game for sure, but some of the criticism (as usual) is absurdly OTT. There again, it matches the funeral march that some held for our point yesterday relative to CL placings, because the likes of Liverpool were obviously going to smash every other team they played this season thanks to 70 million VD.
 
billyiddo said:
Agree with that @Hootnow - he has great potential but is still far away from being the all round player that elite clubs will break the bank for - and if i was to muse on the attitude of fans towards him atm it seems it has already been decided that he is going to leave/force a move and so any support for him has gone out the window
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I think it is sad mate, as I suspect you do too. One of the finest players we've seen for years, who even in a "poor" season has many assists and has scored just shy of 10 goals with a third of the season left, yet it appears people cannot wait to bag on him.
 
thfcsteff said:
I think it is sad mate, as I suspect you do too. One of the finest players we've seen for years, who even in a "poor" season has many assists and has scored just shy of 10 goals with a third of the season left, yet it appears people cannot wait to bag on him.
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I am sure that most of the people that slag Dele off were at the very top of their professions at his age and never made a mistake.
 
I don't this it is out of order to call out when a player has a bad game. Dele has been brilliant for us on a number of occasions over the past couple of years, but I thought he was terrible on Sunday. My perception was that he lost possession more than any other player. The only upside was that he still showed for the ball.
 
Finney Is Back said:
I don't this it is out of order to call out when a player has a bad game. Dele has been brilliant for us on a number of occasions over the past couple of years, but I thought he was terrible on Sunday. My perception was that he lost possession more than any other player. The only upside was that he still showed for the ball.
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Terrible? Bit OTT don't you think?

It would frankly help if comments like that were tempered with a bit more context. No question he struggled to impose himself on Sunday but surely much of the credit / blame for that should go to Southampton? Almost every time he went near the ball he was crowded out by two / three / four defenders all highly motivated to get either the ball or him, it did not seem to matter which.

On top of that every commentator agreed the pitch was heavy, making it harder to play good football.

I'll concede he urgently needs to learn how to move the ball on more swiftly rather than attempt to nutmeg two at a time but let's be fair, it's never going to be easy when defenders so often converge on you like piranhas with only one thing on their minds.

His form seems to have suffered this season for whatever reason but all players go through spells like this. The great thing is he never stops trying to give it his all so imo he deserves to be allowed a bit more slack.
 
Bullet said:
He should look at Thomas Mueller at Bayern. Doesn't need to nutmeg 10 players per game, just arrives and pokes it in the goal, nice and ugly, goal after goal.

Alli has the same engine, frame, talent for arriving late, just poke it in the net, stop trying to be Ronaldinho, you are NOT Ronaldinho.



Reading Poch's book I was very encouraged to hear players say "I thought I did OK, then Poch called me in and showed me a video of 20 times in the last game when I did the wrong thing". This is exactly what Alli needs, a video to show all the great moments we developed... which were quickly ruined by indulgent play.
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Muller has scored more than Alli's 18 goals once in his career - he has less goals this season - I don't know what I am saying here but it surprised me so I added it.

Alli could be Frank Lampard and that would be great but if he can do that little bit more that would be better. He is a lot better player when the team is working well around him, when its not he is still very effective (he is still scoring and assisting at a good rate).
 
I really think we need to leave him to grow up and learn more about the game and himself. He is a marked man even more at the moment and he is having to learn a whole new raft of ideas and skills to overcome these problems. I think he has had a wake up call this season and it has quite naturally slowed his meteoric rise.
He is no longer the new kid on the block and opposition teams are putting even greater pressure on him.
 
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Finney Is Back said:
I don't this it is out of order to call out when a player has a bad game. Dele has been brilliant for us on a number of occasions over the past couple of years, but I thought he was terrible on Sunday. My perception was that he lost possession more than any other player. The only upside was that he still showed for the ball.
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Because he demanded it, and tried to do more with it, than any other player was my perception. Was I frustrated by a few of those runs/b breaks which ended up with him crowded out? Yes. Was I equally disappointed that as he made his way there were not several options appearing for him? Yes. Was I disappointed that the Moose was back to that sort of thing too? Absolutely. Dele doesn't hide. Not saying anyone else does (or did) but he especially wants the burden and takes it on. I applaud that.
 
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