At first glance, Dele Alli to PSG looks like the silliest tale in all of silly season. A transfer that surely can’t happen and surely doesn’t make sense. He’s been struggling for ages now; how could he fail upwards?
But give it a bit of thought, and it turns into a sort of reverse Jesse Lingard to Everton; rather than a move that makes lots of obvious sense but would almost certainly be rubbish, this might be a move that makes no sense but turns out to be wonderful.
First, and most obviously, it definitely makes sense for Dele to try and get himself some kind of move over the next couple of weeks.
Even if it’s only a loan – in fact, perhaps best if it’s only a loan, at least initially – he plainly needs to be somewhere else. Somewhere where he might get to play some football.
Right now, it does not look good for him at Spurs. He is way out of the first-team picture, failing even to make match-day squads, and the one game he might have played has been covided off.
With Gareth Bale now in the mix, it’s only going to get harder for Alli. There quite simply isn’t a spot for him with how Spurs will now line up.
While the Bale signing garnered all the attention, the simultaneous arrival of Sergio Reguilon also works against Alli because it leaves Spurs’ squad even more suited to a 3-4-3 or variant thereof.
Reguilon’s arrival means Ben Davies can be deployed on the left of a back three, while it’s already clear that Matt Doherty is far happier as a right wing-back than a traditional right-back.
The 3-4-3 makes best possible use of Spurs’ elite attacking trio and their wide players, while applying the best available sticking plaster over the open wounds at centre-back and in central midfield.
Eric Dier, Harry Winks and Moussa Sissoko are all obvious winners here, as are Giovani Lo Celso and the now at least partially reintegrated Tanguy Ndombele. The one big obvious loser is Dele. He cannot play in this system. Continue reading