Everton could now have their very own equivalent of Xavi and Pep Guardiola – Our View

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Dele Alli has joined Everton and while he’s been out of form for quite some time, there’s reason to believe he could become a star at Goodison Park.

Indeed, a change of surroundings could do Alli the world of good, and on top of that, he may well be playing under the perfect manager.

Indeed, throughout his career, Alli has been compared to Frank Lampard, and now he gets to work alongside the man himself.

The comparisons between Alli and Lampard have been endless throughout his career,

“He is similar to Frank Lampard in the way he appreciates space and times his runs to ensure he finds great goalscoring positions. He is hard for midfielders to track, or for defenders to pick up when he is running towards them,” Danny Murphy wrote in 2016.

Meanwhile, Lampard’s old teammate Joe Cole also drew the same comparison.

“I can see so many parallels with Dele Alli and Frank [Lampard], the way he speaks about Dele,” Cole said.

“We talk about finding pockets, he got on the turn and it was an early warning to West Ham. When he’s at his best, he’s playing on instinct. He needs to be up the pitch and we need to see more.”

Unfortunately, Alli’s career has floundered a little bit, but there’s every reason to believe that Lampard can get the best out of him. After all, Alli is a very similar player to Lampard in his prime.

There’s a potential comparison to be drawn here between Pep Guardiola and Xavi during their time together as a player and a coach at Barcelona.

Xavi had been touted as ‘the next Guardiola’ ever since he came through at La Masia, but for some reason, he played as a deeper midfielder during the early years of his career.

“Everyone wanted us to have a strong double-pivot midfield. They wanted it like the French, with Patrick Vieira and Claude Makelele. They didn’t want us, small and technical,” Xavi said of his role prior to Guardiola’s arrival.

However, upon Guardiola’s arrival at Camp Nou, the current Manchester City boss, having possessed similar attributes during his playing days, recognised that Xavi’s talents were better utilised further up the pitch.

Guardiola immediately pushed Xavi into a more advanced role, utilising Sergio Busquets, Seydou Keita and Yaya Toure as his sitters, and as they say, the rest is history.

Xavi went down as one of the greatest midfielders of all-time, won countless trophies and even earned a podium position on the Ballon d’Or voting in 2010 and 2011, but perhaps he’d never have become that player without Guardiola as his coach.

Alli is in a similar boat. Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte have both tried to shoehorn him in as a dynamic and hard-working number eight at Tottenham, when, as Cole said, he’s at his best when he’s playing higher-up the pitch – a la Lampard at Chelsea.

We’re not saying that Alli will hit the heights of Xavi, nor are we saying Lampard is as good a coach as Guardiola.

What we are saying is that much like Guardiola and Xavi at Barcelona, Lampard should be able to recognise Alli’s strengths and get the best out of him at Everton due to the sheer similarities between the pair’s styles.

If Lampard can utilise Alli in the same way he himself was utilised by managers such as Carlo Ancelotti and Jose Mourinho during his playing career, then Everton could have a real star on their hands.