Dele Alli and his middle finger incident will be indulged like previous times... if the England manager won't take issue with him why would anyone else?

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When officials emerged from Wayne Rooney’s disciplinary hearing ahead of the 2012 European Championship, they were so astonished by what they had just witnessed they overlooked the fact that they were in the company of reporters in the lobby of UEFA’s headquarters.

They were almost too excited to care, openly sharing their surprise at the sight of Fabio Capello blaming himself for Rooney’s petulant kick out at Montenegro’s Miodrag Dzudovic. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ one official remarked.

Capello had confessed to the disciplinary panel that Rooney was paying for his manager’s mistake and the tactic worked, with a three-match ban reduced to two for the major tournament that would follow seven months later. 

Dele Alli was involved in a controversial incident recently by flipping the finger mid-match

It was in Capello’s interests to issue such a plea, of course. Even if he did quit before England arrived at their training base in Krakow that summer. And to some extent the Italian probably was at fault for not protecting Rooney when news had broken ahead of the game that the player’s father had been arrested as part of a police investigation into alleged betting irregularities involving football matches.

It nevertheless remains an example of the extent to which a manager will indulge a player if the player happens to be that important to him.

When Roy Keane spent a night in a police cell after an altercation in a Manchester bar in 1999, it was Sir Alex Ferguson who was there to collect him the following morning. Keane, of course, was at the peak of his powers, and Ferguson’s first instinct was simply to protect his man; his captain.

It seemed to be the same on Monday night when Gareth Southgate was questioned about Dele Alli giving someone on the pitch the finger. The concern was that England’s most gifted player had directed his gesture towards the referee. Southgate, and he turned out to be right, said it was his understanding that it was actually aimed at Kyle Walker.

It was first assumed Alli had aimed the gesture at the ref, rather than team-mate Kyle Walker

Even so, there was not a word of criticism from England’s manager. Not a hint of concern that Alli could yet be reprimanded by FIFA. No, he was just ‘mucking about’, jokingly adding that two former Tottenham colleagues have ‘a strange way of communicating’. Southgate also noted that Alli had just delivered one of his finest performances of the World Cup qualifying campaign.

Mauricio Pochettino has employed much the same stance with Alli at Tottenham. When in January he was asked to reflect on Alli’s retrospective three-match ban for punching Claudio Yacob nine months earlier, the Spurs manager endearingly referred to the young midfielder as ‘a killer’. ‘It’s important not to be naughty, but have a little bit,’ he said. ‘I like a player who is that way.’

And he no doubt does because there has been many an outstanding footballer who plays on the edge. Who possesses a sometimes dangerous mixture of daring and devilment and performs with a level of intensity they are not always able to control.

With the very best players managers tend to conclude that the positives outweigh the negatives and any attempt to remove that particular element from their game only has a detrimental impact on the team.

Southgate needs Alli. He needs him to grow into the player around which his England team can be built.

While of greater concern to Pochettino will be the question of whether he can keep the 21-year-old in north London beyond this season.

Managers always move to protect their best players, as Fabio Capello did with Wayne Rooney

Alli's fiery side is seen as a fundamental aspect of his game which all top players seem to have

Walker saw the funny side of the situation and later reacted on social media

That could prove difficult when certain indications would suggest Alli could be looking to move on after a campaign he no doubt hopes to conclude with some headline performances at next summer’s World Cup.

But it probably means his managers are going to be the last people to pull Alli to one side and suggest he might want to tone down his behaviour a tad to avoid any further brushes with authority. And it will be much the same story away from club and country.

Alli split with his long-term agent in the summer and, while he is now being represented by members of his surrogate family, a queue of middle men are said to be forming in anticipation of a potential transfer. Be it a new deal at Spurs or new employers, something will certainly have to happen when Alli remains on the relatively modest salary of around £60,000 a week.

But don’t expect the conversation to focus on anything other than how brilliant he is, and how much more he deserves. If the England manager won’t take issue with him for what happened on Monday night, why would anyone else?