The emerging midfield selection headache for Poch

With Nabil Bentaleb and Mousa Dembele injured, Dele Alli has been given the chance to start in the Tottenham centre of midfield.

Its safe to say, he has so far flourished in that role, looking a far more experienced and confident player than most 19 year olds.

He has already got off the mark in the Premier League, netting in the draw at the King Power stadium, and has gone from strength to strength with every game he has played.

However, another youngster who has been delegated the centre-midfield duty has been Alli’s international team-mate – Eric Dier.

With some successful early experimentation in friendlies, it appears that Dier is perfectly comfortable in playing that holding midfield role, who when compared with Morgan Schneiderlin who plays a similar role for Manchester United, has scored more goals, made more tackles and blocks and won more of his headers, not bad for someone who cost £23 million more and is 4 four years younger.

With both these players  impressing, its hard to see where Bentaleb and Dembele would fit in, without displacing any of the in-form youngsters.

A possible alternative would be to drop Alli, and use him as an auxiliary creative attacker to Eriksen as it appears he is most comfortable when going forward with the ball.

Whilst Nabil Bentaleb is somewhat more of a cultured and technically superior midfielder to Dier, Dier bests him physically, an attribute vital to that holding role, especially when the opponent plays strikers like Christian Benteke or Diego Costa.

That leaves Dembele, the most experienced player and the best dribbler, somewhat out of the fray, as whilst all three of the aforementioned have shown their occasional naivety in the midfield, they have proven to be as, if not more effective than Dembele at times.

Whilst it is a ‘good’ selection headache to have, given that Bentaleb,Dier and Alli cost £9 million between them, it’ll be interesting to see how Pochettino picks his midfield once Bentaleb and Dembele return to fitness.