Devilish Alli confronts his England demons
GLASGOW: England midfielder Dele Alli says he and his teammates have had to revisit some “dark places” in order to come to terms with their humiliating Euro 2016 elimination by Iceland.
Alli was one of the 11 players who traipsed from the pitch in Nice last June after Iceland had condemned England to their most galling defeat since a 1-0 loss to the part-timers of the United States at the 1950 World Cup.
Now four points clear in their World Cup qualifying group, England are back on track under manager Gareth Southgate and Alli says being forced to confront their demons has helped the squad to move on.
“We’ve done a lot of work in the camp,” the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder told reporters ahead of Saturday’s World Cup qualifier against Scotland in Glasgow.
“We’ve talked about it and I’m sure Gareth’s aware of how hard it is to talk about it as players, such a low point in our careers.
“You don’t really want to talk about it or think about it because it’s such a hard thing, you know? It still makes your heart go and you get a lump in your throat.
“But I think it’s important that we do go to those dark places to improve as a team. You need to go through it and see what happened and where we went wrong.
“When you have the chance to improve as a team, you have to take it, even if it does mean going through something like that.”
Exuberantly talented but also tough, Alli is an emblem of the new future Southgate intends to forge for England. — AFP