Micah Richards told Sky Sports on Wednesday evening that it’s ‘nonsense’ to suggest that Tottenham midfielder Dele Alli is ‘no longer good enough’.
Whilst Jose Mourinho gets a lot of stick for how he handled Alli and the Englishman’s form during his time at Tottenham, in truth, he was falling off a cliff way before the soon-to-be Roma coach arrived at the club.
From being an England regular and part of the team that reached the World Cup semi-finals, Alli cannot even get directions to St George’s Park now given how he has performed in recent years.
But Richards thinks Alli has ‘absolutely everything’ in his game and it’s just a matter of him being out on the field to showcase what he’s really about.
“He needs to be nurtured,” said Richards. “You don’t become a bad player overnight.
“I think he scored 16 or 17 goals in one of his earlier seasons. He has got absolutely everything.
“Sometimes as a young player, you lose your focus. You get ahead of yourself and your manager isn’t fancying you.
“I have no doubt that there is a quality player in there but you have to get him on the pitch first. I don’t buy into that he’s not good enough anymore. That’s nonsense.”
Well, Alli was in action on Wednesday as he dropped a pretty abject performance as Spurs suffered a 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa.
There’s no hiding behind or blaming Mourinho now because Alli is getting the starts from Ryan Mason and now he has to deliver.
Spurs need their players to step up for the final game of the season on Sunday because defeat against Leicester could potentially see the North London outfit miss out on European football altogether.
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