da dobrowin： Tottenham Hotspur enigma Dele Alli dropped a major statement as the north London outfit eased into the last 16 of the Europa League on Wednesday evening.
da stake casino： Jose Mourinho’s side romped to a 4-0 victory over Austrian outfit Wolfsberger AC, taking the aggregate score to 8-1 overall. And at centre-stage of it all was the rarely-seen Englishman as he stole the show with an emphatic display.
The 24-year-old provided two assists, on top of a simply sublime bicycle kick from the edge of the penalty box just ten minutes into the match, but his performance was so much more than that.
It was only the second time that Alli has lasted longer than 80 minutes on the pitch, and quite rightly too, though it only goes to show that perhaps the pendulum is finally swinging in his favour.
If he keeps performing like that, Mourinho simply has to take notice, especially as they have lacked a creative source of goals in recent weeks – only scoring more than one goal in only one of their six league games prior to kick-off.
Indeed, the Portuguese boss is going to be left with an interesting and tough dilemma as he looks to stop the rot in the Premier League, having lost five of their last six domestic outings.
Alli top-scored in terms of ratings across the board – SofaScore handed him a 9.2, 0.7 more than the brace-scoring Carlos Vinicius, whilst he also received a squad-high ten from football.london and a nine from the Evening Standard.
That latter, journalist Dan Kilpatrick, reinforcing the point that it was a ‘reminder of his quality’ on the night.
In terms of touches of the ball, only two players were more involved than Alli (66) in skipper for the night Ben Davies (99) and engine room orchestrator Harry Winks (83) – both also played ten minutes longer than him, too.
But more importantly, it was what Alli did with his possession – simply put, he made it count. The £26m-rated maestro enjoyed a match-high three key passes, which led to two big chances created and two assists, via SofaScore.
This means his input was more valuable. than that of Davies (one key pass) and Winks (0 key passes).
Alli was also prepared to do some of the dirty work that Mourinho usually requires, and having dubbed him “lazy” in the past, the Spurs boss can hold no grudges here as the 37-time international put in two tackles and won a total of six duels – the third-most in the squad and more than the likes of central defender Eric Dier (two) and the more defensive-minded Moussa Sissoko (two).
BT Sport pundit Peter Crouch was quick to wax lyrical over his performance following the match, he praised the England gem as “first-class” because he was “involved in everything good” [24/02, 18:56].
With Giovani Lo Celso still injured, and Mourinho turning to both Lucas Moura and Erik Lamela in that no.10 role recently, we could well see a comeback for Alli in the Premier League.
That performance alone should be enough to warrant a start, though it does pose a tricky headache for the Spurs boss to ponder.
All in all, the long-serving midfielder – once dubbed an “animal” by Mauricio Pochettino – dropped a massive statement to all those at Spurs – he still has that quality and as Dier told BT Sport 1 post-game [24/02, 19:03], he was certainly “back to his best.”
AND in other news, Levy could SOLVE Spurs’ biggest problem by replacing Mourinho with Wenger-esque leader