It’s not been his best season.
Dele Alli has not reached the dizzying heights of last season’s form in recent weeks, but he’s aiming to reverse a poor run of form in Wednesday night’s Champions League game against APOEL Nicosia.
In the pre-match press conference on Tuesday, Alli admitted that Spurs have not been playing well but was insistent that there’s no reason to panic.
“It’s not unusual for a team to have a dip in form. There’s nothing to worry about for us. We’ve got a great team, a great manager, great staff.”
The 21-year-old has endured spells of bad form this season, coming under a lot of criticism as he has not scored since his double against Real Madrid and acknowledged so in today’s press conference:
“I think I am my own biggest critic. Every time I know when I’m not playing well and if it’s not going well for me, it’s important that I keep working hard and trying every day to learn and improve as a player.”
His personal dip in performance levels does coincide with the team going through a bad spell as well as an injury crisis, though. Fatigue could therefore be playing its part. There are also rumours of a fallout between Alli and his agent, with the super-agents swarming, looking to take him to an elite European club.
It’s easy to forget that the player is still only 21, has set extremely high standards for himself, as well as playing an unusually high number of games for a man of his age.
Whether he can turn this poor run of form around soon will be a test of his mental strength and having seen what he can do, you’d back him to rediscover his magical touch sooner rather than later.
