WHY DELE WILL BE INDULGED...
Spurs and England know he plays best when on the edge
WHEN officials emerged from Wayne Rooney’s disciplinary hearing before the 2012 European Championship, they were so astonished by what they had just witnessed they overlooked the fact that they were in the company of reporters in the lobby of UEFA’s headquarters.
They were almost too excited to care, openly sharing their surprise at the sight of Fabio Capello blaming himself for Rooney’s petulant kick at Montenegro’s Miodrag Dzudovic. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ one official said.
Capello had confessed to the disciplinary panel that Rooney was paying for his manager’s mistake and the tactic worked, with a three-match ban reduced to two for the major tournament that would follow seven months later.
It was in Capello’s interests to issue such a plea, even if he did quit before England arrived at their training base in Krakow that summer. And to some extent the Italian probably was at fault for not protecting Rooney when news had broken before the game that the player’s father had been arrested as part of a police probe into alleged betting irregularities involving football matches.
It nevertheless remains an example of the extent to which a manager will indulge a player if he is important to him.
When Roy Keane spent a night in a police cell after an altercation in a Manchester bar in 1999, it was Sir Alex Ferguson who was there to collect him the next morning. Keane was at the peak of his powers and Ferguson’s first instinct was to protect his captain.
It seemed to be the same on Monday night when Gareth Southgate was questioned about Dele Alli giving someone on the pitch the finger. The concern was that England’s most gifted player had directed his gesture towards the referee. Southgate — and he turned out to be right — said it was his understanding that it was actually aimed at Kyle Walker.
Even so, there was not a word of criticism from England’s manager. Not a hint of concern that Alli could yet be reprimanded by FIFA. No, he was just ‘mucking about’, the manager said. Southgate also noted that Alli had just delivered one of his finest displays of the World Cup qualifying campaign.
Mauricio Pochettino has employed much the same stance with Alli at Tottenham. When, in January, he was asked to reflect on Alli’s retrospective three-match ban for punching Claudio Yacob nine months earlier, the Spurs manager endearingly referred to the young midfielder as ‘a killer’. ‘It’s important not to be naughty, but have a little bit,’ he said. ‘I like a player who is that way.’
And he no doubt does because there has been many an outstanding footballer who plays on the edge, who possesses a dangerous mixture of daring and devilment and performs with a level of intensity they are not always able to control. With the best players, managers conclude that the positives outweigh the negatives and any attempt to remove that element from their game only has a detrimental impact on the team.
Southgate needs Alli. He needs him to grow into the player around which his England team can be built. Of greater concern to Pochettino is if he can keep the 21-year- old at Tottenham. The indications are that Alli could be looking to move on at the end of a campaign he no doubt hopes to conclude with some headline performances at the World Cup.
It means his managers are going to be the last people to pull Alli to one side and suggest he might want to tone down his behaviour. And it will be the same story away from club and country.
Alli split with his long-term agent in the summer, and although he is now being represented by members of his surrogate family, a queue of middle-men are said to be forming in anticipation of a potential transfer.
Be it a new deal at Spurs or new employers, something will certainly have to happen when Alli remains on the relatively modest salary of around £60,000 a week.
But don’t expect the conversation to focus on anything other than how brilliant he is, and how much more he deserves. If the England manager won’t take issue with him for what happened on Monday, why would anyone else?