They seemed interchangeable: the two out-of-favour No. 10s that Everton picked up on deadline day.
Frank Lampard compounded that impression by bracketing them together, littering sentences with mentions of “Donny and Dele.” But when Donny van de Beek was injured in the warm-up at West Ham on Sunday, it was not Dele Alli who replaced him, but Mason Holgate. A defender playing in midfield duly scored, too, giving him more goals for Lampard’s Everton than a player who had achieved more at a younger age than his current manager did.
And if it underlined that Van de Beek and Alli are scarcely identikit players, with the Dutchman actually deployed as a central midfielder by Lampard, it carried on a trend.
Whereas the Manchester United loanee has started five times, Alli is yet to begin a game for Everton. Some 21 players have been in Lampard’s initial 11 for games but Alli, the man once touted for a £100 million move to Real Madrid, can’t get a game for the team in the worst form in the Premier League.
New definitions of rock bottom are created in his career. If Everton was supposed to be a fresh start, there have been no starts. He has been both unimpressive and unlucky. The one game he has begun in 2022 was against Morecambe. He was substituted with Tottenham losing 1-0 but that has meant that, after joining Everton, he was cup-tied for matches that Lampard might otherwise have used to give him sharpness and a chance to gel with new colleagues.
His last outing was against Wolves and if Alli looked hapless, he was left chasing shadows when Everton were reduced to 10 men. He might have come on against Newcastle, but for Allan’s dismissal. But Lampard only made one change against West Ham. Alli went unused.
Yet finding the right role has been problematic. He was parachuted into a debut at Newcastle when Demarai Gray was soon injured, but a berth on the left in a 3-4-3 system doesn’t suit him. Of the four formations that Lampard has used – 3-4-3, 4-4-2, 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 – only one has featured a No. 10 and it felt damning that Anthony Gordon was deployed as such, operating out of position, against Newcastle. The specialist No. 10 feels an endangered species these days. Alli can look the last of the dying breed but as long as he was still scoring, there were reasons to select him.
Now, however, he has one Premier League goal in two years and that was a penalty. Lampard has not built a team around him, but recent seasons have provided too few reasons to. He has shown more faith in players such as Van de Beek and Alex Iwobi.
That extended malaise suggests it was unrealistic to expect Lampard to instantly transport Alli back to 2016/17, when he struck 22 times. But nor was an imperilled club the ideal rehabilitation centre for a lost soul. Lampard described him as “a big player for the future” at his unveiling. But Everton’s future is uncertain, the short term of paramount importance.
The clause in his move from Tottenham, dictating that Everton must pay £10 million when he reaches 20 appearances, could dictate what happens next season. It is implausible Everton would commit those funds if they are a Championship club. So far there have been six cameos, spanning some 175 minutes, bringing three shots, none of them on target. Everton have only scored two goals with him on the pitch and one of those was an own goal.
Perhaps, as Alli proved the enigma who confounded Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte, Lampard was backing himself to succeed where more decorated managers had failed. Maybe he still will, but Everton are running out of time this season. The notion that Alli would be their saviour in a relegation battle had an irresistible appeal, but perhaps insufficient realism. Instead, he has often been a spectator, the prodigy whose early promise seems ever further away.
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