John Giles - Dele Alli has a nasty streak and Mauricio Pochettino was right to call him out over his cheating
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John Giles believes Dele Alli should try to emulate teammate Harry Kane
This isn’t the first time I’ve found reason to grit my teeth where Dele Alli is concerned . He has a streak in him which is, to be blunt, nasty.
At least this time Mauricio Pochettino called him out for an outrageous dive but I fear that he missed his chance to have a bigger impact on a formative mind when he failed to do so last season.
Alli’s diving and – I won’t mince my words here – cheating have been an issue as long as he’s been in the Spurs first team and Pochettino defended him no matter what last year.
Perhaps if he had stated publicly when Alli gave an interview saying that he wouldn’t want to lose his ‘edge’, that his protege needed to calm down, a talented young player wouldn’t be throwing himself on the ground.
It’s not just the diving. Alli has a habit of doing rash things and when I combine the two, I find a player who needs someone to tell him some harsh truths.
He’s a wonderful player who can change a game in one instant or mess things up for the rest of his team in the next by doing something stupid and that’s not a recipe for greatness.
He need only look to Harry Kane for a role model. Kane has all the fight and hunger you could ever ask from an attacking player and I don’t see him diving, or raking someone’s heel with a stud.
