Alli was the man Fergie told Mourinho to buy but his career froze

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There was a touching moment in the All or Nothing series that showed, behind the veneer, there is a far more thoughtful side to than most people get to see.

He had just taken over at Tottenham and brought into his office for a meeting, having already branded him ‘f***ing lazy’ in training in front of all his Tottenham team-mates.

But here, Mourinho struck a more constructive tone: ‘I like you as a player and also as a kid.

I don’t want to be your father, you have a father. I just want to be your coach but with a good connection. I have to tell you always what I think, inside of you, maybe you tell me to f*** off. 

‘I am 56 now and yesterday, yesterday I was 20.

And now I am 56. Time flies,’ he told Alli. ‘And I think one day you do regret if you don’t reach what you can reach. I’m not expecting you to be the man of the match every game, score goals every game, I just want to tell you I think I you could regret.’

Mourinho’s relationship with Alli is a fascinating sub-plot to that series.

The Portuguese coach tells a fawning Daniel Levy that the one piece of advice Sir Alex Ferguson gave him at Manchester United was ‘buy Dele Alli’. At first, the attacker showed an upturn in form under Mourinho but we all know what happened next.

Now, he’s at Everton with Frank Lampard looking to succeed where old boss Mourinho didn’t in getting Alli back on track as the artful, inventive attacking midfielder that illuminated the Premier League and international stage so often with Tottenham and England.

There are various contributing factors to Alli’s malaise.

He had a close bond with former Tottenham coach Mauricio Pochettino – as demonstrated by the praise he gave the now PSG boss in his farewell statement upon leaving Spurs.

There has been a lot of upheaval at Tottenham since – Mourinho, Ryan Mason, Nuno Espirito Santo and now Antonio Conte have managed Spurs since and the lack of consistency has hindered many other players than just Alli.

But off the pitch, he hasn’t had the easiest time of it.

He had a tumultuous split with his partner, Ruby Mae, last year with some reports even suggesting it was because he played too much of the online video game Fortnite.

They had been together since 2016, albeit briefly splitting up in 2019 before reconciling and then splitting again in 2021.  Since then, he has been pictured on dates with Pep Guardiola’s daughter Maria and was also rumoured to be on the celebrity dating app Raya.

In May 2020, Alli and Ruby Mae were robbed at knife point by robbers in their London home.

He suffered a minor facial injury and had watches and jewellery in the incident.

There is an argument that a move away from London could do Alli some good – Rio Ferdinand and Raheem Sterling are two examples he may look to.

Ferdinand once said that moving from West Ham to Leeds in 2000, away from London, was a major move in helping his career develop.

‘I could’ve gone to Chelsea.

I got a phone call just as I was going to Leeds. I just said to the geezers, “there’s no point even trying to pitch the idea to me. I need to leave London”.

‘I’ve got all my mates, I go out every weekend. I can go anywhere in town, I’m living a distraction. Going to Leeds was getting me away from my mates, who were good boys, but we were getting in trouble and going out too much.’

Sterling has said similar about life in Manchester and the prospect of ever returning to play for a London team.

In a Twitter Q&A in 2017, Sterling was asked if he could ever see himself playing for a different team than City.

‘Nobody knows what the future brings so one day, definitely, it would be nice to play abroad. It would be a great experience,’ he said.
‘Spain’s attractive. Anywhere the weather is nice really! Can’t be in London. I can’t be near my friends. They got to stay down there.’

Alli arrives on Merseyside with a manager in Lampard he knows backs him. Speaking back in 2017, when Alli was in electrifying form, Lampard gave a glowing appraisal of the Tottenham man.

‘Dele Alli is a special player,’ Lampard said.

‘He is better than I was at 20, that’s for sure. He is like a second striker at the moment – he needs to be up there all the time.

‘He’s got the knack for runs, he scores great goals. He runs into the six-yard box and too many attacking midfield players run to the penalty spot and stop and don’t go that extra mile.
There are so many goals to be had.

‘He’s ahead of the game, it’s all about his development from now. It’s not just about what he does on the pitch but off the pitch, people around him and how he grows as a person and as a player.’

So there will be no surprises as to what the first thing Lampard is going to tell Alli on the training pitches at Finch Farm.

But the latter part of Lampard’s quotes that day about taking care of himself off the pitch is where they could well be a match made in heaven.

Alli is only 25 and if Lampard can unearth the player seen under Pochettino, Everton will have a hell of a player on his hands.
It will depend on many things – the players Lampard gets around him, his training methods and how Alli responds to life at Everton.

But for now there is immense excitement at the potential of the move. Everton released a video on Wednesday morning of Lampard greeting Alli at Finch Farm by saying ‘We did it’.

The hard work starts now but there is already a feeling that Lampard’s appointment has brought fresh air to Everton. And that could be just what Alli needs.