Jose Mourinho divulges training ground jibe he's used to motivate Tottenham star Dele Alli

Posted Saturday, November 23, 2019 by Express.co.uk

Jose Mourinho divulges training ground jibe he's used to motivate Tottenham star Dele Alli (Image: GETTY)

Jose Mourinho is keen to revitalise Dele Alli's Tottenham form after a poor 18 months.

Jose Mourinho has told Dele Alli he is the poor relation of the Tottenham team at the moment in a bid to spark him back into the form he showed two years ago.

In a remarkable exchange on his first full day at the club, Mourinho called the England international aside to find out why he has been unable to live up to the promise he showed when he first arrived at the club.

“I have already spoken with him,” Mourinho told reporters. “I asked him if he was Dele or Dele’s brother.

“He told me he was Dele. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Play like Dele’.”

Time will tell how the 23-year-old responds.

In 2016/17, Alli scored 18 goals in the Premier League. Since then his numbers have dropped off – nine the following season, then five and this campaign he has managed just two.

Injuries have played a part, and Mourinho admits that he too needs to draw the best out of a player who was tipped to become a world class player for Tottenham and England.

“I think he is potentially a fantastic player,” Mourinho said.

“Now I have to create a tactical situation he is happy with, give him the right dynamics and prepare him physically well because he has had important injuries and he is not on the top of his form.

“I cannot expect him to play on Saturday – if he plays – and go there and be man of the match.

“But he needs to go through a process that will bring the real Dele back because the real Dele is the one who in the last few years has impressed us all.”

Alli’s commitment has been called into question recently and even this week, trouble-makers invented a tweet it was claimed he made as a 15-year-old at MK Dons.

“Surely I can't be the only one who thinks Mourinho is overrated and too cocky,“ pranksters claimed he wrote. “It just makes you look like a bad manager, I'm glad I'll never have to work with him.”

Thankfully, Mourinho is not easily duped and blew a raspberry at such a cheap attempt to generate a story.

“You are unlucky because it looks like it was a fake,” he said. “But even if it was not fake? Thrppp!

“When I was at Unao de Lena to Porto I played against Porto and I insulted Deco and he insulted me. Big, big insults.

“Then a couple of weeks later, Porto bought me. I walked into the dressing room and he had his head down on his hands. But I went there and we talked.

“So even if it was true about Dele, I would be happy about that.”