This column has been quiet since the end of last season, in part due to the fact that 2022-23 was so emotionally draining, but it’s also a reflection of the stasis at Everton’s, particularly with regard to the lack of transfer activity, and the general feeling that 2023-24 is probably, at best, going to be a year of consolidation and limited ambition.
Bigger, more lasting factors are playing out at Boardroom level, of course, with MSP Sports Capital finalising their first investment into the club but in the absence of confirmation, it’s a case of waiting and seeing on that front as well.
The Dele Alli situation, however, was genuinely intriguing even before his brave and revealing interview with Gary Neville on The Overlap this week. Coincidentally enough, I was working on a draft piece on the narrow window that Dele has to prove himself to Sean Dyche this season given that just seven more appearances for the Blues will trigger a £10m payment to Tottenham Hotspur according to the terms of the deal struck with Daniel Levy in January 2022.
There may well have been a feeling that Dele, with the reputation that has grown up around him in recent years, was quite some distance removed from the archetypal Dyche player and that it was more than likely that he would simply see out the final 12 months of his Everton contract, either out on loan again or kicking his heels in the reserves.
But his candid and encouraging discussion on The Overlap offers the best hope yet in the 18 months since he arrived at Goodison Park that he could not only be a functioning part of the Toffees’ first team but a genuine difference-maker rather than the somewhat disengaged character that his demeanour in many of his first 13 games for the club suggested.
Indeed, if that hope engendered by the interview that he can get his once-stellar career back on track is realised in the coming months, then the whole picture around the 27-year-old changes dramatically. It really would be like a new signing.
On a purely human level, whatever happens with his career at Everton, it was genuinely heart-warming to see Dele in such a positive place mentally and in terms of his belief that he can get back to his best. Even if he never scales the heights he once he did, he now looks more likely to avoid the more destructive and sad fate away from the game that many might have feared he was heading for.
The impression you got from his alarming fall from grace, no doubt fuelled by the accusations of laziness that he addresses in the interview, was that of a player for whom super-stardom and national acclaim came too fast and too soon and that, as a result, his appetite for the game had ebbed away, particularly after his mentor, Mauricio Pochettino, had left Spurs.
The observation made recently by Alex Iwobi that Dele just wasn’t “a training-ground player” as far as doing the hard yards in the gym and in practice drills were concerned certainly played into the same narrative. But it’s clear, from his decision to drop “Alli” from the back of his jersey to the heartfelt revelation on The Overlap of the abuses and struggles he endured as a young boy, that there were deeper, darker forces at work than simply falling out of love for professional football.
The admission that substance abuse was affecting his ability to perform physically coupled with the mental battle against his critics and nay-sayers offers further context to his poor form and, under those circumstances, it’s perhaps not surprising that his supposed “fresh start” in the unfamiliar surroundings of Turkey didn’t provide the catalyst to change.
Instead, it was the injury he sustained at Besiktas, contemplating the surgery that would be required to fix it that, and the fresh media feeding frenzy that was thrown up by photos of him partying on his return to England that prompted him to take the step of seeking professional help to slay the psychological demons that have haunted him in recent years.
The proof of the pudding will, of course, be in the eating. Evertonians would dearly love to take Dele at his word and believe him when he says he has got the fire back in his belly and that his passion for the game he loves so much has been restored but he is going to have to show it on the pitch where it counts.
His situation is complicated, though, by the terms of the deal that brought him from North London to Merseyside which mean a first tranche would be due to Tottenham once he makes his 20th appearance and the fact that he only has 12 months left on his contract.
If there were any compassion left in football, Levy would agree to renegotiate those terms to allow Dele more latitude to rebuild his career at Goodison on the back of the Neville interview, but the game is all business now and the chances of that are remote.
As it stands, Everton would be loathe to trigger that first £10m payment during what would essentially be a trial period and then risk losing either a player reborn or one on whom another club might gamble for nothing next summer having invested a transfer fee in him.
Ultimately, assuming he doesn’t take the Premier League by storm this coming season once he regains his fitness, it could come down to a gut-feeling call from Dyche and Kevin Thelwell on whether to invest precious funds in Dele Alli by giving him the bulk of the season to prove himself.
If he rediscovers his best form, the hope then would be that he either contributes enough to help Everton to a higher finish than they otherwise might have without him (with the commensurate prize money bridging the fiscal gap) or that he opts to repay the faith the club showed in him by agreeing new terms in a year’s time.
Either way, the Dele story could add a fascinating dynamic to Everton’s 2023-24 season given that, on his day, he is a world-class performer capable of filling a variety of roles and both creating and scoring goals. And at a time when the Blues genuinely can’t afford to add talent like that to their ranks, he could provide a genuinely unexpected bonus.