“The Spurs boys said great things about the manager”
“It’s quite intense in the Premier League, so I like to relax as much as I can. A lot of the boys at Tottenham are on Call of Duty at the minute – it gets very competitive. There are about 15 of us who play online: Jan Vertonghen, Toby [Alderweireld], Walks [Kyle Walker]... Nabil [Bentaleb] has just started playing, too, but he’s not that great. I’d say Eric Dier is the worst, though.”
The defender-come-midfielder raised in Portugal is, by Alli’s own admission, the butt of a lot of the Buckinghamshire boy’s jokes. Alli tells FFT that Dier is the club’s worst gamer, but also the worst dressed (“None of his clothes fit him”) and the worst dancer (“It’s horrendous; I’m trying to teach him”), and he recently began attempts – tongue planted firmly in cheek – to arrange a bout between 22-year-old Dier and Olympic boxing champion Anthony Joshua. Yet he also says his colleague in the Spurs midfield is his best friend at the club. “He’s a good guy and a great player,” Alli says enthusiastically. “We have been close ever since I joined. I think he’s going to be a friend for life.”
That bond has served the pair well this season. The duo both earned first senior England call-ups thanks to a string of fine displays as the deep-lying midfield two in Mauricio Pochettino’s 4-2-3-1 system.
However, Alli has also spent time further forward, acting as the team’s primary creative force – the No.10 tucked in behind Harry Kane. Where does Alli see his future? “I’m happy to play anywhere,” he tells FFT. “If I’m playing as the No.10 it’ll help me a lot for when I move back into the more defensive role.”
With both Alli and Dier thriving in north London this season, along with several of their young team-mates, it has become increasingly clear that Mauricio Pochettino has the knack of getting the very best out of promising young players. Ten of the 18 players to have made their England debut since the Argentine arrived in the Premier League in January 2013 have done so after playing for the former Espanyol boss at either Southampton or Spurs. But what makes him so good?
“He tells you how it is, and we have that kind of relationship where you feel you can talk to him about anything,” Alli reveals. “It’s really important, particularly for a youngster, to have a manager who not only has faith in you, but who you can speak to about whatever you need to.
“Obviously it’s still early stages at Tottenham – I’ve not been there that long! – but you can see all the players really trust him. He doesn’t just want to make everyone the best player; he wants to bring them out as a person as well.”
Not that Alli has ever needed too much help when it comes to the mental side of the game.
“We had a guy at MK to help with stuff like that,” he says, “but I didn’t see him much because I’ve always been quite confident in my own ability. I’m very different off the pitch to what I’m like on it, though – I’m not quite as fiery!
“You have to be confident in yourself. You can’t be scared when you go out there. It can be quite daunting, especially for a 19-year-old moving away from home and into London, but you have got to be strong, believe in yourself and express yourself as much as you can. You don’t have to believe you are the best, but you definitely have to believe that you can become the best. I want to be as good as I can be and achieve as much as I can.”
“ICAN’ T GET CARRIED AWAY. I DEFINITELY WOULDN’T SAYI’ VE MADE ITYET …”
But could those potential achievements include this season’s Premier League title? February’s 1-0 win against Watford – in which Alli created the winner 176 seconds after appearing as a second-half substitute – saw Spurs move second in the table. It was followed by that tenacious 2-1 victory at the Etihad Stadium. In a season where it seems anything could happen, could one of those things be Spurs finishing top of the pile?
“We’re still quite relaxed about it,” Alli says. “It’s not impossible, but we don’t want to get too carried away – that’s when things can go downhill. We’re a very ambitious squad, we have great depth, so anything’s possible – we just need to win as many games as we can.”
But it’s not just success at club level that should be in his sights.
“I didn’t really expect it, to be honest,” Alli says of his first senior England call-up, for October’s Euro 2016 qualifying double-header against Estonia and Lithuania. “We were in Monaco the day before our Europa League game there, and the manager [Pochettino] took me to one side and said: ‘Would you like to go away with England Under-19s?’ It’s an honour to go away with your country at any age group, so obviously I said I would go. Then he said: ‘Actually, I think you are going away with the senior team’. He just wanted to see my reaction!
“I didn’t want to think about it too much until after the Monaco game, but it was a bit hard to keep it all in.”
Typically unfazed, Alli says he was “excited rather than nervous” when thrown into the mix after 88 minutes of England’s 2-0 win over Estonia – his full debut for his country. Similarly, when the ball fell invitingly to his feet some 25 yards from goal in the friendly against France a month later, the youngster wasn’t at all flustered – despite the fact his club captain and friend, Hugo Lloris, stood between him and a first international goal.
“It’s another one of those things – it just happens in a moment and you don’t really think about it until afterwards,” Alli says. “As soon as it dropped to me I knew I was hitting it, and fortunately I caught it cleanly and it went in. Hugo and I had a joke about it afterwards. Obviously he was happy for me – he’s a great guy and he’s helped me a lot since I came to Tottenham – but it did make it a bit sweeter to score against him. I’ve not mentioned it to him in a while, actually. I’ll drop it in again soon.”
Given Alli’s impressive form this season, a spot in Roy Hodgson’s squad for Euro 2016 looks a near-certainty, injury permitting.
“I’ve thought about it a number of times,” Alli says of his potential summer sojourn to France. “But I can’t afford to get carried away. If I want to get picked I’ve got to keep my place in the Tottenham team, and keep trying to improve. I need to work on my left foot – that’s one of my biggest weaknesses. I’m staying after training with a few of the boys and doing some long and short passing to work on that.”
So quickly has he pulled up a seat and made himself comfortable at football’s top table, it is to Alli’s credit that he remains level-headed. Not that he isn’t hugely ambitious.
“I definitely wouldn’t say I’ve made it yet,” he tells us. “I’ve still got so much to achieve. I’m extremely grateful for everything that’s happened so far, but I’m still just looking to improve. In the next five years, I want to be a regular starter for England and I want to win the Champions League.
“With Spurs, of course.”