Dele Alli less than 8 minutes difference to last season

Dele Alli less than 8 minutes difference to last season

Dele Alli doesn't listen to his critics

I saw this tweet from Spurs Stat Man and immediately thought of all the media and fans shouting that Dele wasn't playing well, when in fact he was still creating goals for teammates.


He gets targetted by opposition players clearly, either to stop him creating anything or to try and wind him up and blow a fuse.

The 22-year-old (23 next April) England international doesn't measure a successful personal season by goals alone, as his critics seem to do, he has 14 goals and 17 assists. In the Premier League his goal tally halved to 9, but people forget he also had 11 assists while being a marked man this season.

That's a direct hand in 20 goals in 36 Premier League games. He had 9 assists in 37 games last season.

2016/17
Premier League
Goal every 169.11 minutes
Assist every 338.22 minutes
Direct Hand in a Goal every 112.74 minutes

2017/18
Premier League
Goal every 330.01 minutes
Assist every 270.09 minutes
Direct Hand in a Goal every 148.55 minutes

2016/17
All Games

Goal every 182.45 minutes
Assist every 308.77 minutes
Direct Hand in a Goal every 114.69 minutes

2017/18
All Games
Goal every 270.71 minutes
Assist every 222.94 minutes
Direct Hand in a Goal every 122.26 minutes

All games include the important UEFA Champions League games of course and his direct hand in a goal figure is not too dissimilar to last season, less than 8 minutes difference. His game simply meant he created more goals this season, a factor simply overlooked.

That isn't how we coaches look at things, there is more to a players game than goals so he has certainly come in for criticism he often hasn't deserved. he isn't bothered by it.

"Everyone has different opinions. If this is a 'bad season' for me then I'm happy to take that as a compliment.

"I am my own biggest critic. If you have the right focus, everything else is just noise.

"My focus is on being the best player I can be - when you expect that from yourself no one can expect more from you.

"I've worked hard to get this far but there's always room for improvement.

"I'm sure if you asked ­Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, the two best ­players in the world, they would say they can improve on something.

"I want to keep on ­improving, I'm working with a good manager in Mauricio ­Pochettino who is hungry to help every player."

COYS

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