da fezbet： Hooliganism was once dubbed the English disease, as Liverpudlian, Cockney and Mancunian firms kicked over rubbish bins and stole shell tracksuits from some of Europe’s quaintest towns throughout the 1970s. But if there’s one ailment that uniquely plagues our game in the present day, it’s our shared willingness to go weak at the knees for any home-grown player to show half a half of decent form.
da betano casino： Partly due to the fact their more senior counterparts haven’t given us much to cheer about since 1966 and partly due to the Premier League’s nature or turning zeroes into heroes and vice versa almost overnight, it takes one step-over from a London or Liverpool-born teenager for most England fans to fall in love at first sight.
I’m not the most well-travelled of fellows (although I did once spend a week on the Isle of Wight) but I’m certain other countries don’t treat their youngsters in quite the same way, ladling bowl after bowl of inflammatory hype over their youthful skin before setting it alight with headlines like ‘You’re rubbish’, ‘Disgrace’ and ‘What a waste of money’.
Yet, sometimes when watching a player it becomes impossible to ignore your instincts, instincts telling you the next Bryan Robson, Paul Scholes or Wayne Rooney is manifesting in front of your very eyes. Sometimes you know when you’re looking at the real deal, a youngster destined for great things, and that’s the exact feeling I get when I’m watching Tottenham Hotspur’s Dele Alli.
Yes, we are just 10 games into the midfielder’s Premier League career. Yes, we have seen more illustrious talents, who have established themselves more considerably by the age of 19. For every Wayne Rooney, there are a thousand Francis Jeffers-esque names. For every Frank Lampard, there are a million Luke Chadwicks, with a million faces only a million blind mothers could love. Once the honeymoon period is over, Alli could well revert back to resembling what he actually is; a teenager recently plucked from the depths of League One.
But it’s the ease in which Alli has jumped up two divisions in the space of a single summer that tickles the hairs on the back of my exceptionally hairy neck, like a brown rug of excited approval. It took just a handful of performances in pre-season to convince Mauricio Pochettino that the teenager deserved a run in Spurs’ first team squad rather than a year out on loan; it took even less time to convince the Argentine that he should be in Tottenham’s starting line-up every week.
Alli’s displays have certainly justified a decision most would describe as either naive or brave. His midfield partnership with Eric Dier has been the foundation for many of Tottenham’s best results this term, including hard-fought draws with Liverpool and Arsenal, an attritional win against Crystal Palace and an emphatic 4-1 romping of Manchester City. Perhaps the biggest compliment you can give a 19-year-old after just ten Premier League appearances is that he doesn’t look out of place.
In drastic contrast, Alli looks like he’s been there all along; controlling the ball with a chest-high take on the centre-circle against Arsenal, the Premier League’s most in-form side at the minute, lamenting Erik Lamela, a £30million club-record signing four years his senior, for not passing the ball, waiting on the edge of the box whilst chaos ensues inside it until arriving at the perfect time to blast the ball into Aston Villa’s net, switching between the roles of No.10 and deep midfield with almost miraculous ease in the space of a single half. All miniscule moments from Alli’s first 763 minutes in the Premier League, but when put together all incredibly telling of his confidence, maturity, natural talent and tactical understanding.
Of course, my opinions mean little to the average England or Tottenham Hotspur fan. But the 6 foot 2 prodigy has worked under just three managers throughout his career and immediately convinced them all.
MK Dons boss Karl Robinson has described Alli as ‘the best young player he’s ever worked with’ and played him 72 times out of a possible 92 during his two full League One campaigns in the first team. Pochettino installed him as a Tottenham regular almost instantaneously and Roy Hodgson wasted no time in making the midfielder a fully-fledged England international, issuing him three caps out of a possible three since his October debut. Mirroring his Premier League displays, Alli hasn’t looked out of place in an England jersey either. Three different and completely independent managers at three diverse levels of the game can’t all be wrong, can they?
Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean Alli is destined for greatness. There are no guarantees in this world, and especially in the realms of football. But amid the age of unhealthy overhype, a new phrase has entered common diction that I feel particularly applies to the Spurs starlet. Instead of prophesising inevitable greatness, the popular trend is to state with less expectation but equal conviction; “he will go as far as he wants to go.” Clearly laden with superlative ability, attitude and determination will decide the heights of Alli’s career.
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