00:00These days when you hear the name Dele, the first thing that usually comes to mind are
00:04a few questions. Where's he playing now? What's happened to him? In the past few seasons his
00:08reputation has quickly turned into one big what could have been, painting the picture of a player
00:13who couldn't live up to the hype. That however is far from the truth. Rewind just a few years
00:19further and you get a very different picture. At Tottenham, Dele wasn't just a promising
00:23youngster. He was one of the best midfielders in the Premier League and one of the brightest
00:29young players in world football. Back-to-back PFA Young Player of the Year awards 18 league goals
00:35in a single season, a Champions League double against that Real Madrid side. Oh and let's not
00:41forget on the biggest stage of them all, a World Cup quarter-final where he rose highest to lead
00:47England into the semis. These weren't flashes in the pan, this was cold hard proof of a player who
00:53belonged at the very top. So how did a teenager dominating against Europe's elite, a young star
00:58trusted to deliver for England, go from Spurs' golden boy to being written off before he even
01:03turned 25? Then why is there far more to understand about his talent than meets the eye? Welcome to
01:09episode two of Respect the Name with Dele.
01:29Now, Dele's fuddling youth wasn't spent at a glamorous academy or on the fast track through
01:33England's elite youth system. He came from League One at MK Dons, a club that many people actually
01:39mocked just for existing. When a footballer's journey starts in the lower leagues, there can be
01:43a bit of snobbery around from the higher-ups, a bit of Premier League bias to those in the EFL.
01:49But when a player breaks into the first team, at 16 years old no less, and starts bossing games
01:54against hardened professionals, you can't help but take notice. Tall, athletic and technically sharp,
02:00he was gliding through opposition midfields like he was on his way to bigger and better things.
02:06The truth is though, it took a warm August evening in 2014 for those in the wider football community
02:12to really take notice, as Louis van Gaal's Manchester United were utterly torn apart,
02:184-0 in the League Cup by MK Dons. This was van Gaal's side, who had spent big in the summer,
02:23had just announced the purchase of Angel Di Maria for ÂŁ60 million, and boasted senior pros in the starting
02:29XI like Javier Hernandez, Shinji Kagawa, David De Gea and Johnny Evans. But regardless,
02:35the midfield belonged to Dele. His confidence on the ball, his competitiveness in every challenge,
02:40the maturity in his positioning. This was a warning shot to the rest of English football. Scouts from
02:45Europe's biggest clubs were in the stand that night, and a few months later, after more standout displays,
02:50Spurs made their move. At the time, ÂŁ5 million still looked like a gamble, despite all of his
02:56potential. But it was one they couldn't afford to walk away from. Jumping from Ligue 1 to the
03:01Premier League is usually a slow burn. Most expected Dele to sit on the bench, learn the ropes,
03:06maybe even go back out on loan. He did for the second half of that season after Spurs had signed
03:11him. But instead, he blew the bloody doors off the Premier League. Ten goals and nine assists in his
03:17very first season. Man of the match displays in a North London derby, a serious link-up developing
03:22with Harry Kane and winning PFA Young Player of the Year for the first time. And then there was
03:28the wonder goal at Selhurst Park. Arguably, the finest goal of the decade.
03:42If his debut season had been impressive, the next one proved that it wasn't just beginner's luck. By
03:472016-17, Dele wasn't just emerging, he was dominating. And the question was, how good could
03:53he become? Could he be the next Lampard, the next Gerrard, or even better? Playing just behind Harry
03:58Kane in Pochettino's high-energy 4-2-3-1 system, Dele thrived. His timing into the box was devastating,
04:05arriving late like a striker, but with a vision of a midfielder. He scored 18 Premier League goals
04:10that season. That's more than most strikers, and he was only 20 years old. Beyond the numbers,
04:15though, there was a style to him that made him unforgettable. The skills, the audacious
04:20attempts, the swagger, which, by the way, wasn't just for show. October 2017, Wembley under the
04:27lights. Spurs against Real Madrid, the reigning Champions League winners. Ronaldo, Modric, Ramos,
04:35Kroos, a team built to dominate Europe. Nights like this were supposed to be theirs, but if you were there,
04:40or even watching on TV, you'll remember it. The game belonged to Dele.
04:45Here's Winks. Looking for Trippier, who's in behind them again. There's another good
04:49goal! And there's the goal! And he's back in the Champions League! And back with a bang!
04:54It's Dele Alli for time of Oxford! Dele Alli away from Casemiro, and still,
05:00and the deflection! Oh, he's done it again! Spurs 3, Real Madrid 1. The atmosphere,
05:07electric. The disbelief, real. For a few hours, it felt like Tottenham could beat anyone,
05:12and at the centre of it all was their number 20. It wasn't just a group stage win,
05:17it was the night Dele announced himself on the European stage. Spurs fans still talk about that
05:23night as one of their greatest ever European victories, believe me. Transfer rumours swirled
05:29yet again, and this time the names were even bigger. Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG. At its peak,
05:35Spurs valued Dele at more than ÂŁ100 million. In the space of two seasons,
05:40he'd gone from League One teenager to one of the hottest properties in world football,
05:44and naturally, that spotlight carried over to the international stage.
05:55Now, we've seen this story many times before, and arguably once or twice since, but England fans are
06:00always waiting on the next superstar, the next talisman to drive this new generation forward,
06:05and Dele looked like he could be the one. I mean, there's no wonder fans up and down the country got
06:09excited about him after witnessing his England senior debut. Still a teenager, but he was already
06:22carrying himself like a star. Although part of the ultimately unsuccessful Euro 2016 squad for England,
06:29Dele brought his best self to the World Cup two years later in Russia. Southgate had built a team
06:34around youth and energy, and Dele fit in perfectly. In the quarterfinal against Sweden, with England
06:39leading 1-0, he ghosted into the box, rose above the defence, and nodded in the second. 22 years old,
06:46he'd scored in a World Cup quarterfinal. Only a handful of English players have ever done that.
06:51For England fans, it felt like the start of something. Dele wasn't just another name on
06:55the team sheet, but part of the new core, a new hope, with Kane leading the line,
06:59Sterling in his prime, and Dele ghosting into the box just at the right moment. It felt like the
07:04first chapter of a very long story, but football has a cruel way of flipping the script. What felt like
07:11the start of something special turned out to be his last truly great moment in an England
07:16shirt? So what actually happened? How did the boy wonder England's future end up fading so quickly?
07:23By 2019, things started to look a little different. The goals had dried up, the flare seemed almost
07:29muted. Suddenly, the player who made everything look so easy was struggling to make anything look
07:34simple. Now, this wasn't exactly setting alarm bells ringing. He was still a young player, and every pro
07:40goes through peaks and troughs in their career, especially at a young age. Injuries, though,
07:45played their part. Hamstrings, groins, the kind of knocks that rob a player of their rhythm. But the
07:50criticisms weren't just about his fitness. There were reports of a party-heavy lifestyle and the
07:56lack of professionalism off the pitch, whether true or not, that led to pundits to question his
08:01attitude. And then came the Spurs All or Nothing documentary. The cameras caught then-manager Jose
08:08Mourinho in his office with Dele.
08:19That one line stuck more than any beautiful moment of inspiration could on the pitch. For many fans,
08:25that was it. Dele wasn't a wonder kid anymore. He was lazy. He was the butt of online jokes. He was
08:31the target of ridicule the poster boy for lost potential. I mean, look, it's one thing to hear
08:37pundits call you lazy on TV, but it's another when your own manager says it straight to your face,
08:42and then everyone sees it. That's enough to ruin anyone's confidence. In the coming years, as manager
08:48after manager couldn't get the best out of him at Spurs, the club eventually moved him on. By summer
08:53of 2023, he was halfway through an uninspiring Everton spell, which included a brief and frustrating
08:58loan to Besiktas in Turkey and unknowingly heading into a Premier League season where he wouldn't play
09:04a single minute. By the age of 26, Dele had gone from one of the most valuable players in the world
09:10to a what happened story. And for many fans, the conclusion was simple. It was just wasted talent.
09:16But the real story was about to come out and it wasn't the one anyone expected.
09:22In 2023, Dele sat down with Gary Neville for a podcast episode of The Overlap.
09:27At first, people thought it would be just another football interview about form,
09:31injuries and a sort of what went wrong look back. Instead, it became one of the most emotional and
09:37revealing conversations English football has ever seen. Dele spoke about his childhood,
09:43how he was abused as a child, smoking by age eight, dealing drugs at 12 and adopted at 13.
09:48All of this before he even touched the heights of professional football. And when he did make
09:53it to the top, the scars never really went away. At 24, he checked into rehab and for years,
09:59whilst fans, pundits and even managers labelled him lazy, Dele was silently fighting battles that
10:04most people couldn't even imagine. It wasn't that he was looking for excuses or anything. He was just
10:10bringing forward the human side of things, a side rarely taken into account when discussing
10:15footballers, high performance athletes or anyone in the grips of fame. The drop off,
10:19the inconsistent performances, they weren't about laziness or poor attitude at all. They were about
10:24the struggle of dealing with internal problems and issues, all whilst being unable to escape the
10:28spotlight and work on them in his own time. To make it from that background to achieving what he did in
10:35such a short top level career, the story here isn't of wasted talent. It's of resilience, strength and
10:40completely defying the odds. Ultimately, it's easy to judge a footballer by what they didn't do.
10:46And with Dele, the temptation is huge. He never sustained the level his talent suggested. He dipped
10:51when fans expected him to be at his best. He didn't dominate for a decade like Gerrard or Lampard,
10:56but all of that expectation and pressure only existed because of the remarkable feats he achieved at
11:01such a young age in the first place. If the same dip, right, happened today to Jude Bellingham,
11:07Cole Palmer, people would be stunned. That was the level that Dele was at. Honestly, the heights he
11:12reached deserve way more respect. What he achieved, everything he went through deserves even more.
11:18But here's the interesting part. Dele's story could be far from over. I'm sat here in September 2025
11:24and after his spell at Como has come to a premature end, guess what? He's still only 29. All I'm
11:30saying is that there's plenty of players who are yet to create their most memorable work at that age,
11:35who found new life in the latter part of their career. For a period, Dele was unplayable, one of
11:41the best attacking midfielders on the planet. And given what we now know about the trauma he carried
11:46with him, those highs look even more remarkable. Dele, respect the name.
11:58Oh, what a finish! Here's Ali, can he get a touch? Brilliant control! Wonderful goal!
12:03Goal!
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