Tottenham Hotspur had busy final hours of the January transfer window closing. The north London club made a double swoop to land Juventus’ Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski. However, they did see some departures.
One player that departed this past month is Dele Alli, the 25-year-old who landed with The Toffees. Sky Sports’ Kaveh Solhekol spoke about Alli using this opportunity to start fresh and rejuvenate his career following the last few years at Tottenham.
“Since Mauricio Pochettino left Spurs, Alli had a tough time under Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte. On his day, he’s a very good player. I remember his performances at the World Cup in 2018 and thought he was one of England’s standout players. He’s been at Spurs for eight years, and twice he’s been the PFA Young Player of the Year,” Solhekol said.
“He’s just lost his way a little bit at Spurs because maybe from his point of view, managers have come in, and he’s not been given much of a chance.”
The Premier League club will be required to pay £10-million once Alli plays 20 games. Furthermore, ESPN reports further performance-related add-ons that could see the cost reach at least £30-million with Alli signing a two-and-a-half-year contract.
Alli made 269 appearances for the north London club scoring 67 goals and registering 61 assists. Everton is hoping Frank Lampard can breathe some fresh air into the midfielder, who hopes to use this opportunity to restart his career and maybe land a spot on the England national team for Qatar later this year.
Indeed, moving out players that have no obvious future here has been a serious issue for a few years, on that alone it’s real progress.
He’ll probably end up being used a CDM.
More lost his will than lost his way.
I really hope he finds form and drive at Everton, but for me he’s up there with Bently and Dos Santos in terms of wasted talent and taking his own hype for granted.
I’m not even sure it’s an ‘application’ thing, he’s put in sporadic effort for all our managers – I think he’s been found out ability-wise, he’s lost the knack on his good qualities and is just plain lacking with other facets
Sky have always looked as his situation with Dele tinted glasses.
We’ve had Sky pundits endlessly questioning why consecutive managers have been seemingly overlooking him with references galore to his few games in WC 2018 and the couple of YPOTY awards he got 5 and 6 seasons ago.
Now he’s moved, the narrative from Kaveh Solhekol intimates he wasn’t given chances.
It’s almost as if Sky refuse to acknowledge Dele’s been given countless chances from 5 managers and consistently underperformed throughout. He simply never really knuckled down, which is a great shame given his “potential”
I honestly can’t think of any standout Dele moments since that sideline pass to Sonny in the build up to Moura’s goal against West Ham in 2019.
Moving players on is something we’ve not done, so it was more putting things right and the first real option. NDombele should have gone before but Levy wouldnt let him go, its taken getting Conte to get Levy to release the tallons on him.
Its not necessarily a making a great window, but moving NDombele, LoCelso and Dele on is a benefit and hopefully NDombele and LoCelsoo can be made permanent.
Conte evaluated the squad and also was realistic, it was never going to be a single or even two window fix to be challenging.
Conte (and Jose) have publicly stated this and I feel he is willing to work on a medium term project if there is progress.
Now Conte wants to challenge does Levy?
As a fan we don’t know what the owners objectives are, Poch had top 4 as his original 5 year objective (his mistake was getting it to early and set him up for lack of support with Levy).
Is the club looking to win a big trophy or just any trophy? Form past actions we’ve not wanted it at the top unless we got lucky and got to a final but even then the chairman pulled away from that, just ask Jose.
But there are bigger issues in the player recruitment and scouting as well?
Paratici has this to sort.
The academy is not generating cash returns in out goings (they don’t just generate players for the club its footballers to sell on)so from the bottom up something isn’t working.
Then in recruitment the negotiations go through Levy in the latter stages.
The 3 deals that we so publically lost could have some valid reasons to why we lost out, the Lewes lad might have asked for too much, Liverpool were always going to come in and turn the player due to position in challenging for winning as a deciding factor. But we never seem to learn when we miss out.
In transfers Paratici’s way of operating may hurt him with Levy, as if he knows hes for other options for a position, where is the incentive for Levy to get no1 option when he knows 3,4 or 5 will probably be cheaper as in his eyes a bolox watch looks the same as a rolex but only a fraction of the price.
Valued high then sell low if sell at all.
Consider Alli and Rose alone have had highest values of over £150 million between them and what did/will we get for them?
Football isn’t about just keeping your best players, its about releasing players at the right time to keep the squad optimised for performance as well as keeping the dynamic right in the squad.
I liked the idea of Toure at Spurs…but the ‘convert to a wing back’ talk from Conte scared me a bit with this deal, this bloke making tackles in our penalty area no thank you
Think all’s for the best in the end
Liverpool wanted Diaz in the summer – they thought they might miss out so went for the kill, Levy backed off straight away, no surprise….but missing out on Toure taking 3 weeks haggling over 3-5m was Levy all over…as much as he isn’t world class, he would of done a job for us, he scares oppositions and can run at players splitting play up…….
‘prices’
They spent pretty big on Sanchez, Ndombele and Lo Celso…unfortunately they are all ropey signings.
Get the right players at those process and on those wages and we’d at least be getting somewhere.
The recruitment has been even worse than the lack of investment.
there’s a lot of content out there because we have shifted lots of wages/players that are no good as though its their money they are saving….unless this 21 year old has magic dust I can’t see why this is a successful transfer window….those two players to me are the types of transfers you do during the summer to replenish the squad, not in Jan when we need experience and class to help us to top 4/cup…..and then you get “its building for the BIG summer”…yeh right, after 22 years people still think ENIC are going to spend big….
Totally agree with all of that, you’ve nailed our transfer window. Unless there’s some significant upscaling in the summer Conte’s gone…
The whole deal is deeply embarrassing for Dele or at least should be. We’ve essentially had to let him go for free and keep our fingers crossed he can get into that Everton side..
My prediction is that he will have 2/3 half decent games and then revert back to type. Don’t be surprised if Everton try and sell him in the summer for some kind of profit.
But we still have to have the obligatory ‘Alli was a genius until Pochettino left’, as if all our problems started in October 2019, The reality is that Spurs and Alli peaked in 2017, and both were very clearly in decline under Pochettino, with Alli’s goals and general performances sharply down as his non-football distractions took their toll. Perhaps he can recover some of his old form, but slowing down play with unnecessary second touches have been part of his game for so long that I’ve got my doubts, and he wouldn’t be the first, or last, player who began brightly and just fizzled-out – Barmby springs to mind, but I daresay I could think of half-a-dozen if pushed.
Used the right way with a manager that wants a player like him in the side, I think he’ll still do more in his career. Lampard wasn’t dissimilar in that role, less natural talent than Dele but knows the role inside out. Think it could work, but he’s not a Conte type player and he obviously needs a fresh start.
It’s been a bad window again. 2 in 4 out. The two in aren’t a significant upgrade to what we already had, to be honest I think we are weaker than when the window started.
Conte Evaluated the squad and was very clear, we all knew what he wanted, a left footed centre back, a right wing back, an attacking central creative midfielder and a striker. So Levy with the help of Paratici goes and buys him a winger and another defensive midfielder, nothing like what Conte asked for, they only got those two because of Paratici’s links to Juve.
Every window is the same, Levy makes out he’s making offers for all these top players, big money offers, knowing full well they won’t sign or come. And every window we end up signing average players at best. But it’s all OK because Levy’s made another profit in the window and all the Spurs fans have been fooled into believing it’s been a great window for us.
The true Spurs fans will make themselves heard at the next home game and will be calling for Levy and Lewis to get out of OUR club.
He did the same with Eriksen. He only wants to buy low and sell high. His problem is that he doesn’t understand football well enough to know when the right time is to do things. Utterly clueless actually.
Just read the piece by Martin Samuel. Finally, somebody in the MM has dispelled the myth that Levy is a master negotiator in the transfer market. The amount of money Levy has lost in the market is staggering. Added to the amount of compensation we had had to pay for the dismissal of fourteen managers, assorted coaches, DoFs and scouting staff, he has cost the club a fortune. Let’s not forget that it’s the club that pays for his mistakes whilst he engages in increasing his wealth through Enic’s property ventures. History will not treat him kindly and when he finally sails off towards some warm tax haven, there will be tears of joy from the fans. Thank you Daniel for twenty two years of shattered dreams, frustration and broken promises.
“You’ve got Ali
He’s a toffee”
Well a player valued at one point around the £90mill mark, gone for zilch plus add ons. That’s great management by the Chairman in losing that sort of potential transfers, but still seen a master deal maker by some.
saw Martin Samuel do a piece in the mail on similar sort of misconception of Levy.
I wish the lad well. Maybe being away from the bright lights of London will help him rediscover his undoubted talent.