Dele Alli’s football career has been on a downward spiral since leaving Tottenham in 2021 after struggling to rediscover his best form at Everton and his future now looks uncertain having been excluded from Cesc Fabregas’ plans at Como
Former Tottenham star Dele Alli is reportedly considering retirement at the age of just 29 after being told he is not Como’s plans under Cesc Fabregas this season.
Alli has endured a nightmare spell since leaving Tottenham for Everton in 2021 after struggling to find his best form at Goodison Park before a disastrous loan at Turkish side Besiktas in 2022-23.
Everton allowed him to train with the first team during the 2023-24 season but he failed to stay fit and avoid injuries and eventually left in 2024 before Como and Fabregas took a chance on him at the start of the year.
But his luckless run in football continued after he was sent off on his Como debut, just ten minutes after coming on as a substitute following a rash challenge on Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
Alli hasn’t played for the club since and he has now been “banished” from Fabregas’ plans for the new 2025-26 Serie A season, according to Gazetta dello Sport, and the England international is now thinking about hanging up his boots.
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The Italian outlet has detailed how Alli has been training away from the first team group and is now weighing up his next move, with few options on the table for the former wonderkid.
Premier League fans will remember being wowed by Alli during seven years at Tottenham, where he once scored 18 Premier League goals in the 2016-17 season as Spurs finished second in the league.
Tottenham’s All or Nothing documentary on Amazon in the 2019-20 season shed a light on Alli’s struggles behind the scenes, however, as former boss Jose Mourinho was filmed criticising his work ethic in training before telling the player he will “regret” not realising his true potential.
Alli later gave a heartbreaking interview with Gary Neville in 2023 following his exit from Spurs, revealing his trauma as a child, including how he was sexually abused as a child.
He said he struggled with his mental health throughout his career and had spent time in rehab following the end of his Besiktas loan due to an addiction to sleeping pills.
During the interview, Alli said he had contemplated retiring at 24 when Mourinho was the manager after losing his hunger as a top level footballer.
“One morning I woke up and I had to go to training – this is when he’d stopped playing me – and I was in a bad place. I was literally staring in the mirror and I was asking if I could retire now, at 24, doing the thing I love. That was heartbreaking.”
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