Gareth Southgate reveals whether Dele is missing out on England due to laziness

England manager, Gareth Southgate has revealed that Dele Alli was not left out of the national team squad because he is a lazy player, following reports this week.

It emerged that Jose Mourinho called Dele lazy after first watching him in Tottenham training, even having one-on-one meetings with both Levy and Alli himself about the issue (Sun).

Southgate has left Alli out of numerous England squads in the past year, with the likes of Mason Mount, Ross Barkley, James Maddison, Phil Foden, and even Kalvin Phillips getting in ahead of him.

Despite the fact that Alli has extensive international experience with England at the European Championships and World Cup, he is struggling to break his way back into Southgate’s plans.

Southgate claimed that he was looking forward to seeing the Tottenham ‘All or Nothing’ documentary from Amazon Prime, but that perceived laziness was not behind his decision to omit Dele.

Instead, he argued that Dele’s poor form and injury record influenced his decision (Mirror): “I’ve not seen the documentary although I’m very much looking forward to watching it.

“But, no, I just think with Dele when you look at the squad we’ve picked you know the performances of those players in that post-lockdown period, that end of season period, they all performed exceptionally well.

“So I think Dele wasn’t necessarily getting in the team towards the end for Tottenham and then had an injury at the end of the season so he’s had a very stop-start couple of years with injuries.

“Then he had a good spell when Jose first took over so we know what he’s capable of, we know that there are some talented players around the country in those attacking areas of the pitch.

“We really have great competition for places and it’s hard to pick a squad and to leave people out but, as I said, I felt that others toward the end of that period, and in the last three, four months in particular in those attacking areas just played a little bit better.”