Eddie Howe has revealed how he twice attempted to sign Dele Alli.
Tottenham’s Dele Alli celebrates scoring
Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe has told The Mirror how he twice wanted to sign Dele Alli, long before his move to Tottenham Hotspur.
Alli turned 21 this week, and he has been showered with praise after scoring yet another goal last weekend, curling home a long-range opener in Tottenham’s 4-0 win over Watford.
The midfielder has now taken his Premier League tally to 16 goals this season, and with 19 goals in all competitions, Alli has become one of the most dangerous goalscoring midfielders in the world.
Remarkably, Alli has already been involved in 40 Premier League goals, notching 26 goals and 14 assists for Tottenham, which is as many involvements as Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and David Beckham had at his age combined.
Alli is destined for stardom, and he will be looking to add more goals to his name when Tottenham take on Bournemouth at White Hart Lane this weekend.
Ahead of that game, Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe has told The Mirror that he is delighted to see England produce a player of Alli’s quality, before revealing that he had twice wanted to sign the midfielder.
Howe claims that he not only wanted to bring Alli to Bournemouth during their days in the Championship, but also talked about signing him whilst in charge of Burnley.
Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe
“It’s good to see us produce a player of this type in this country,” said Howe. “We did look at him, but at that time we felt he was beyond us-money wise and probably club wise with the level we were at.”
“We [Bournemouth] were Championship at the time, and we talked about him when we were at Burnley as well, but he had gone beyond us quite quickly,” he added.
Many mangers will be ruing not signing Alli, given that Tottenham paid just £5million (BBC Sport) to sign him in 2015, and he’s now worth considerable north of £50million – a true success story of English football in recent years.
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