What is Dele Alli's Best Position?
Frank Lampard and Everton have handed Dele Alli a life-line.
Dele Alli endured the worst season of his career last year, struggling for game time having played just 620 minutes in the league.
When he did play, he failed to make an impact and ended the season with just 1 assist in 15 Premier League appearances.
He was a shadow of the player who generated 12 returns in 25 Premier League appearances during the 19/20 season.
Though his defensive numbers were outstanding and saw him reach the 99th percentile for pressures, and pressures in the attacking third (as per fbref/statsbomb). Numbers that promote retrospective irony of the highest degree for two reasons.
Reason Number One
José Mourinho’s comments the season before as he famously said “Dele Alli is not a midfield player.”
Reason Number Two
The fact that Spurs are currently the 4th worst side in the Premier League (as of Feb 16th 2022) when it comes to winning possession in the final third. If only they had a player in their ranks that placed in the 90th percentile for tackles in the attacking third in 2 of the last 3 seasons… If only…
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In fairness, you can understand why José Mourinho identified Dele Alli as an attacking player.
His first 2 seasons at Spurs saw him rack up 44 attacking returns in 70 Premier League appearances - with Dele scoring 18 of those during his second season in England’s top flight.
And even the next 3 seasons that followed were sprinkled with goals and assists.
Bearing in mind last season’s numbers and now accounting for this season’s, a pattern is beginning to appear - and it’s not positive.
The main focal point of Dele Alli’s game has completely diminished over the previous season and half. There is a severe lack of end product, with Alli contributing with just 1 goal and 1 assist in his last 35 Premier League appearances.
THE BEST VERSION OF DELE ALLI
The best version of Dele Alli could be seen during the 2016/2017 season, in which he netted an incredible 22 goals and chipped in with a further 14 assists in 50 appearances for Mauricio Pochettino’s Spurs side.
18 of those goals were in the Premier League, with 12 goals occurring when Alli was deployed as an attacking midfielder.
SO, WHAT CAN WE CONCLUDE?
Well firstly, José Mourinho was onto something.
Dele Alli had his best goalscoring season when he primarily featured as a number 10.
Of those 18 Premier League goals scored, 12 came from when Alli functioned as a native number 10.
So that is our conclusion; Dele Alli’s best position is in the role of an attacking midfielder.
The best version of Dele Alli functions as a native number 10, giving him the freedom to occupy central areas and provide attacking support whilst making use of his technical ability to create space, opportunities and most importantly; goal-threat.
A big part of why Dele Alli flourishes as a number 10 though is due to his defensive work.
As an attacking midfielder in a 4-2-3-1 or 3-4-2-1 system for example, he will act as part of the first line of defence, providing an astonishingly high number of pressures per 90 - numbers that put him in and around the 99th percentile per 90 (as per fbref/statsbomb).
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