Dele Alli’s body language on Thursday night when the biy was on touchline waiting to come on, wasn’t great. The gimme 5 with Bale was perfunctory, quickly followed by a more animated slap down with Lamela. The acquisition of Bale after all was yet another contributing factor to Dele’s recent fall from grace. I got a sense that a stirring chorus of ‘We’ve got Deleee’ might have done the boy a world of good at that point.
This was Dele’s 32-minute cameo in which to show Mourinho he could be rehabilitated. The last one was 24-minutes against Manchester United in the 6-2 win on 04.10.2020.
Both of these appearances lacked the Dele spark. Whilst the 24-year-old hit 66% in total successful actions in both games, which is above his average of 58.7%, which perhaps shows greater concentration levels, he ultimately failed to impress. Looking at the sudden competition in the squad, Alli looks increasingly like a peripheral character.
Dele achieved just a 64% passing accuracy, and tried 3 crosses against LASK and none of them were successful. In fact, Dele hasn’t managed an accurate cross since we played Middlesbrough in the FA Cup, back in 05.01.2020.
Right now there are just far too many better options available to Mourinho.