Journalist asks Mourinho what he thought of Dele Alli’s return to the first-team

Much has been made of Dele Alli in the press over the past week after the English midfielder was dropped repeatedly by Spurs head coach, Jose Mourinho.

Alli started the club’s opening Premier League fixture but was removed at half-time at home to Everton in a lacklustre performance.

Mourinho then proceeded to leave Dele out of the squad not only for the Thursday night trip to Bulgaria in the Europa League, but also away to Southampton last weekend.

Alli finally made his second appearance of the new campaign last night against Shkendija in Tottenham’s Europa League qualifier, managing around 60 minutes in North Macedonia.

It was far from a diamond performance for the midfielder and Mourinho refused to comment on his individual showing, although he did reveal that Spurs were bad for around an hour, the exact time that Dele was on the pitch.

Alli has been linked with a loan move away from the club this month, with PSG rumoured to be a potential destination (Telegraph).

Here is what Mourinho had to say when he was asked to compare Alli’s performance to Tanguy Ndombele’s (Football London): “The team didn’t play very, very well – as a team. It’s hard to individualise, it’s hard to say player A, B or C when the reality is that for one hour we didn’t play very well.

“For the last 25 or 30 minutes, the team played well. We gave intensity, accelerate the game, used the wings, we had occupation in the box, Harry not losing the ball and dropping back and linking the ball.

“The team improved very much in the last 30 minutes.”

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