Manchester United legend Gary Neville has called on misfiring Tottenham midfielder Dele Alli to remember the style of play that allowed him to establish himself as one of the most talented midfielders in the country.
The 25-year-old has suffered quite the fall from grace from his successive PFA Young Player of the Year awards in 2015/16 and 2016/17 respectively. He was taken off by manager Nuno Espirito Santo after just 45 minutes during Sunday's north London derby defeat.
Alli had little to no impact on an afternoon to forget for Tottenham as they were convincingly beaten by a rampant Arsenal side who put three past them in the opening 35 minutes.
After the game, Neville discussed Alli's demise and how he can begin to salvage his career, telling Sky Sports : "He’s got to simplify his game he was an instinctive player that realised his job was to get in the box in every attack, to get into the box, make that run from a deeper position, from off Harry Kane or past him when they didn’t have the ball.
"He’s now basically getting involved in build-up, thinking he’s a player and he’s not a player, he’s not a Thiago or Bruno Fernandes or Jorginho, he’s not that type of player don’t get too involved in the build-up. He’s got to remove himself from the build-up and get involved in the game in the latter part and final third then get back and tackle."
Neville went on to lambast the performance of Spurs as a whole, bemoaning their midfield display in particular as he said: "I know they didn’t have great football players in the centre of midfield but the appetite to press and win the ball back was completely different than even their performance against Chelsea where I thought they played alright.
"Arsenal just ran all over them and then the big problem when Arsenal sat deep and said ‘can you break us down’ again they had no idea so it was poor first half for Tottenham.
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"It happens when you’re 3-0 up you manage the second half out, sometimes it can kid you when you score a goal coming back into it."
The ex-united star capped off his rant on Spurs' performance by claiming these are worrying times for the club, adding: "That’s a bad day for Nuno, a bad day for those players. I think fans left the ground thinking there’s more problems than losing 3-0 to Arsenal."
