Dele Alli will be staying put at Tottenham Hotspur this January transfer window. Despite his uncertain long term future with the club, and his extremely diminished role within the team, he’s not moving to Paris Saint-Germain on this deadline day.
Manager Jose Mourinho, who favors other players over the English midfielder in his team selection, reportedly signed off on Alli’s departure to PSG, but the move required sanctioning from Chairman Daniel Levy. That didn’t happen, because Spurs wanted to line up a replacement first, but simply couldn’t in time.
Dele Alli staying @SpursOfficial. No deal with PSG.
— Simon Stone (@sistoney67) February 1, 2021
The tweet above is from BBC reporter extraordinaire Simon Stone. The Twitter posting below is from international transfer expert and ace reporter Fabrizio Romano, so now you have two confirmed sources that the deal is off.
It’s really a shame for Alli, who is almost frozen out at this point, especially when you consider what his status at the club used to be. In each of his first two campaigns (2015/16 and 2016/17) at White Hart Lane, Alli was voted the PFA Young Player of the Year and made the PFA Team of the Year.
Dele Alli > PSG deal is *not* happening. Definitely collapsed. The player was pushing to leave Spurs but Tottenham refused to let him go because they didn’t find a replacement. It’s over. ?? #psg #thfc #spurs #DeadlineDay https://t.co/j9qEIjAi75
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) February 1, 2021
Back in those days, he was considered the team’s second best/most important player, behind only Harry Kane. Now you only really see him in cup competition, and he was even called out publicly, by Mourinho, on Christmas Eve for making a glaring error in the League Cup clash against Stoke.
Dele Alli was hoping for a reunion with former manager Mauricio Pochettino, who is now in Paris, and somebody under which he thrived. Maybe that will come someday soon, but it’ll have to wait until the summer now, at the earliest.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.