Teddy Sheringham has advised Dele Alli to forget the hype and do the hard work to get his form back.
When the Englishman broke into the Tottenham first team he was seen as a football protégé and was expected to become one of the biggest stars in the game.
He has, however, struggled with his consistency and has not made the England team for some time now.
In Tottenham’s first game of the season against Everton last weekend, the 24-year-old was taken off at the half time by Jose Mourinho for tactical reasons.
He was also not included in the travelling party as Tottenham beat Lokomotiv Plovdiv in the Europa League on Thursday.
Alli was warned by Jose Mourinho as shown via Tottenham’s Amazon series All or Nothing that he will regret wasting his career if he doesn’t put the effort in.
Sheringham is the latest individual to offer him some advice so that he doesn’t waste his career and the former Spurs’ man told Football London.
“Things happen in football. You get talked about in certain ways and sometimes you believe the hype,
“He was an unbelievable prospect. Has he realised those optimistic feelings? Has he got the best out of his ability? I don’t think he has yet because he is probably believing the hype around him.
“He needs to get back to getting his nut down, do his best for the team and be the player that he was three years ago. Then you might have the player back again.
“I don’t think it is anyone else. I don’t think he carried that many injuries, it is not like he has had big injury after big injury which sets a player back.
“It is probably all up there (in his head) and he needs to have good professionals around him which get him playing the game how it should be played.
“Footballers have ups and downs in their careers, especially as young lads. He has come on the scene and he was fantastic.
“Optimism, brilliance, scoring goals and just being a very good player around the place. He has had his downside.
“That downside has probably 18 months, touching two years for him to have that spurt back. That is a long time.”