{"id":1161265,"date":"2020-09-14T17:20:23","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T16:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/?p=1161265"},"modified":"2022-12-05T14:54:10","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T14:54:10","slug":"dele-alli-jose-mourinho-spurs-good-books","status":"publish","type":"features","link":"https:\/\/www.squawka.com\/en\/features\/dele-alli-jose-mourinho-spurs-good-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Dele Alli: How can Spurs midfielder he get back into Mourinho’s good books?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dele Alli was subbed off at half-time as Spurs lost at home to Everton in their first game of the 2020\/21 Premier League season.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, being subbed off by Jos\u00e9 Mourinho at half-time isn’t necessarily a damning thing. The Portuguese has done it so often during his career (especially in England) that it’s almost a rite of passage at this point.<\/p>\n

The problem for Dele is that this sub came just a couple weeks after Amazon’s “All or Nothing” documentary aired, which revealed how confrontational Mourinho had been with him.<\/p>\n

Mourinho’s official excuse for removing Dele was tactical: “[Everton] were playing with only one player in front of the defenders. [Andre] Gomes and [Abdoulaye] Doucoure were pressing higher on [Harry] Winks and [Pierre-Emile] Hojbjerg. Lots of space, very easy to play around for Allan in this area there.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“I felt we needed more creation there. Lucas was one of the players who for me was physically better because he was one of the guys who had a very good pre-season,” he said<\/a> after the match.<\/p>\n

There’s so much to read into that, but what’s most notable is that he doesn’t once say Dele’s name. He just refers to the players he wanted to star, rather than the player who had underperformed. Dele is so far from Mourinho’s thoughts that he didn’t even warrant an insult or pithy remark. That’s as bad as it can get for a player, really – is he even a featured player in Mourinho’s plans?<\/p>\n

\n

The key winners and losers as Jose Mourinho suffered a managerial first – https:\/\/t.co\/VrgyAioewS<\/a><\/p>\n

???
???<\/p>\n

A tale of two transfer windows.<\/p>\n

— Squawka (@Squawka) September 13, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n