The rise and fall of Dele Alli
작성자 | Jaimie
날짜 | 2023.09.16
조회수 | 5
For most football fans, Dele Alli is a name that elicits perhaps a greater sense of frustration than most in England's long history of producing world-class talent.
From a young age, Dele had huge potential and appeared to make the step up with greater ease than any of his peers. He seemed destined to go further than any English player had gone in a long time.
But as meteoric as his rise has been, his fall has been almost as breath-taking. As suddenly as he burst onto the scene at Tottenham in 2015-16, he swiftly and inexplicably fell from grace.
He took the Premier League by storm at just 19, becoming one of the most highly-valued midfielders in the world within a few short years, but now, eight years later, he is scarcely recognisable as the same player.
It begs the question - what happened to Dele, and why is the midfielder now being pictured with laughing gas canisters and booze as he returns to England on the back of a desperately poor season with Besiktas, injured and with his career seemingly dangling dangerously over a precipice?
Dele Alli caught the eye of England's top clubs after a stunning season at MK Dons as a teenager
He rose to prominence with Tottenham and was at one point among the most highly-valued midfielders in the world
By 2018 he had become a crucial part of Gareth Southgate's England squad and starred at the 2018 World Cup in Russia
Dele was seen with a balloon in his mouth in a photo that circulated on social media in April after his season was curtailed by injury
Dele spent his youth career at League One outfit MK Dons, working his way into the first team in July 2013 aged 17, before drawing the attentions of teams much higher up the pyramid.
At 19, and after just a season and a half in the third-tier, he was proving himself a cut above the rest as he scored 16 and made nine assists. He was comfortably MK Dons' best player on the way to Championship promotion.
But it wasn't in the second-tier that his immediate future lay, and Tottenham snapped up the teenager for an initial £5million to bring him to the Premier League in February 2015, loaning him back for the rest of the season.
Rather than look a fish out of water, this unknown youngster turned up in the greatest division in the world and came a whisker away from reaching double digits for both goals and assists (10 and nine).
In his early days at Tottenham, he was scarcely seen without a smile, and his fearless play epitomised this. Dele was not only embarrassing and taunting grown adults and veterans of the game, but he was doing so with evident enjoyment, and the results spoke for themselves - his outrageous volley against Crystal Palace in January the best example of this.
It was in the second half of his dazzling debut season in 2016 that he met Ruby Mae, who he would spend the next five years with in a relationship that has been described as 'turbulent', but would prove a formative period in the player's life as he turned from a teenager into a young man.
Few would have guessed it, "http://www.fantasyroleplay.co/wiki/index.php/User:JuliWilhoite37 but his personal life was not always filled with the evident glee shown with the ball at his feet early on in his career.
Dele's childhood was a difficult one, and one that he has been unwilling to talk about in the past, with reported instability in his formative years. Born Bamidele Jermaine Alli, his mother, Denise and his father, Kehinde, split when he was three years old.
The midfielder met Ruby Mae (pictured) in 2016, and the pair would share a turbulent five-year relationship
Dele had three siblings growing up including sister Barbara Johnson (R), with his mother having four children with different partners
The Everton midfielder has not spoken to his mother Denise since 2015 and moved in with his friend Harry when he was 13
He was born to a mother who had four children with four different partners, and Denise has previously described his upbringing as 'rough'. Dele himself has admitted that he fell in with 'the wrong crowd' when he was growing up as a youth in Milton Keynes.
From a young age, Dele had huge potential and appeared to make the step up with greater ease than any of his peers. He seemed destined to go further than any English player had gone in a long time.
But as meteoric as his rise has been, his fall has been almost as breath-taking. As suddenly as he burst onto the scene at Tottenham in 2015-16, he swiftly and inexplicably fell from grace.
He took the Premier League by storm at just 19, becoming one of the most highly-valued midfielders in the world within a few short years, but now, eight years later, he is scarcely recognisable as the same player.
It begs the question - what happened to Dele, and why is the midfielder now being pictured with laughing gas canisters and booze as he returns to England on the back of a desperately poor season with Besiktas, injured and with his career seemingly dangling dangerously over a precipice?
Dele Alli caught the eye of England's top clubs after a stunning season at MK Dons as a teenager
He rose to prominence with Tottenham and was at one point among the most highly-valued midfielders in the world
By 2018 he had become a crucial part of Gareth Southgate's England squad and starred at the 2018 World Cup in Russia
Dele was seen with a balloon in his mouth in a photo that circulated on social media in April after his season was curtailed by injury
Dele spent his youth career at League One outfit MK Dons, working his way into the first team in July 2013 aged 17, before drawing the attentions of teams much higher up the pyramid.
At 19, and after just a season and a half in the third-tier, he was proving himself a cut above the rest as he scored 16 and made nine assists. He was comfortably MK Dons' best player on the way to Championship promotion.
But it wasn't in the second-tier that his immediate future lay, and Tottenham snapped up the teenager for an initial £5million to bring him to the Premier League in February 2015, loaning him back for the rest of the season.
Rather than look a fish out of water, this unknown youngster turned up in the greatest division in the world and came a whisker away from reaching double digits for both goals and assists (10 and nine).
In his early days at Tottenham, he was scarcely seen without a smile, and his fearless play epitomised this. Dele was not only embarrassing and taunting grown adults and veterans of the game, but he was doing so with evident enjoyment, and the results spoke for themselves - his outrageous volley against Crystal Palace in January the best example of this.
It was in the second half of his dazzling debut season in 2016 that he met Ruby Mae, who he would spend the next five years with in a relationship that has been described as 'turbulent', but would prove a formative period in the player's life as he turned from a teenager into a young man.
Few would have guessed it, "http://www.fantasyroleplay.co/wiki/index.php/User:JuliWilhoite37 but his personal life was not always filled with the evident glee shown with the ball at his feet early on in his career.
Dele's childhood was a difficult one, and one that he has been unwilling to talk about in the past, with reported instability in his formative years. Born Bamidele Jermaine Alli, his mother, Denise and his father, Kehinde, split when he was three years old.
The midfielder met Ruby Mae (pictured) in 2016, and the pair would share a turbulent five-year relationship
Dele had three siblings growing up including sister Barbara Johnson (R), with his mother having four children with different partners
The Everton midfielder has not spoken to his mother Denise since 2015 and moved in with his friend Harry when he was 13
He was born to a mother who had four children with four different partners, and Denise has previously described his upbringing as 'rough'. Dele himself has admitted that he fell in with 'the wrong crowd' when he was growing up as a youth in Milton Keynes.