Last night Tottenham defeated Shkendija of North Macedonia 3-1 in the Europa League to set up a final qualification match against Israeli outfit Maccabi Haifa.
There were many positives and the odd negative to take from the game and for some, Dele Alli was one of those negatives but I disagree.
I kept an eye on Alli throughout the game and thought that he did just fine, he certainly put the effort in and played no better or worse than most of his teammates.
There were better performances for sure, Tanguy Ndombele was immense but attacking Alli for his display, which some have done as shown in this article from This is Fubol is misplaced and a case of jumping on the bandwagon for the sake of it.
Has Alli let himself and the team down over the last 18 months or so? Yes, he has, however, that does not mean that every single time he puts on his boots that his performance should be ignored and instead condemned without a fair and balanced review.
Any fair-minded person watching Alli last night would have seen the determination on his face, the runs he was making, the way he backtracked, to me, it seemed that he was trying too hard and that he was definitely following Mourinho’s instructions.
I will rip into Alli as quick as the next guy but only when he deserves and he does not deserve it based on last nights game.
No doubt some will point to the easy chance he had to score and the occasions he lost the ball but they are isolated incidences and his game taken as a whole was not that bad.
But the current fashion is to attack Alli no matter what and that is going to be a hard narrative to crack.
The good thing about that game was that Jose is rapidly finding out those players that he just can’t rely on.Yes Dele tried ,but to my mind nothing really came off and he had an excellent chance to score and failed.Perhaps he was just trying too hard.
I agree Wilks has looked woeful this year and if he keeps playing it must mean Jose has something in mind for him.For the life of me I can’t think what it might be.
We need to move the ball forward much quicker,but won’t achieve that with Winks and Sissoko in the team.
Keep both.. Bales world class, its rare any player of his calibre would want to come to us. Gareth isn’t a risk. He will pick up niggling injuries but he will play plenty. He doesnt rupture ligaments, he doesnt pick up severe injuries. Kane is more likely to pick up a serious injury so by that logic he is an even bigger risk.
Winks is incapable of taking a risk. He’s the sort of player you bring on when you’re 3-0 up with 15 minutes left. He offers nothing else to the team.
Er… Sorry, Steve and H. Have made the appropriate correction. Just booked the mince pies into Boots!
Keep watching him every game. He has to be demoted sometime soon. Useless… At one point he had the ball and just fell over like the invisible man shoved him.
😳 I assumed you were having an eye op there, was going to wish you luck too….. I guess Spurious doesn’t agree with Bruces post… Perhaps he’s the one who should get his eyes tested!
Our worst player was Winks. At one point in the 1st half all that was needed was a simple ball into Son for the game to open up and Winks couldn’t even manage that, causing Son to stretch and slip. Dreadful stuff.
I’d rather keep Dele than Bale. Accepting an Injury prone player arriving injured is a big risk
Eh?
Good luck with the cataract op, Bruce.