Mauricio Pochettino has leaped to the defence of Dele Alli.
The Tottenham midfielder has come in for criticism after scoring just once for the North London side so far this term.
Alli has struggled for form with injuries disrupting his career over the last 12 months, and speaking ahead of the clash with Everton, Pochettino says that it's important to take the pressure off the 23-year-old.
He said: "We need to remember that Dele is so young and the demand and the pressure on him is massive.
"Everyone expects big things from him – he's English, an international but he's only 23 years old.
"He was fantastic, he's dropped a little bit but we need to help and back him.
"He does not need to pay attention too much, he needs to be focused, improve, try and be strong again and start to perform in the way everyone expects."
Alli's former manager Karl Robinson also insisted that the midfielder needed time to recapture his form in an interview with talkSPORT this week.
He said: "You’ve got to understand that everyone is surmising here, everyone is presuming things.
“Sometimes it can be taken out of context, people are paid to make a judgement on the game and the way it goes, but everything else is hearsay.
“I know him personally and the one thing I put down to a bit of a lack of performance is that this very young boy has played professional football since the age of 15 or 16, and he didn’t have any major injuries.
“But over the last 12 months he’s had one or two hamstring issues and a different bits and bobs, because of overplaying.
“I think one thing we’re all forgetting about these young England players is, when are these kids going to get time off?
“Let’s start having a look at the programme, let’s start having a look at the amount of minutes they’re playing, because I think Dele is suffering more from fatigue rather than the things he’s doing away from the game. He’s not had any time off whatsoever.
“To win Young Player of the Year for two years on the spin, he’s an exceptional talent.
“He might have lost his way, I don’t know and I can’t comment on that, but I want to give him the benefit of the doubt and put it down to the amount of football he’s played.
“Our young players are getting flogged because of how intense the Premier League is, it’s the most intense league in the world, and then you put the European games and England games on top of that.
“I think that’s more of an issue, and more of a deep-rooted issue than just with Del.”
