Dele Alli’s Tottenham future is in doubt after the England midfielder was left out of José Mourinho’s squad for the 5-2 victory at Southampton on Sunday, with Paris Saint-Germain understood to have been offered the chance to sign the midfielder on loan before the end of the transfer window on 5 October.
Mourinho revealed after the win at St Mary’s in which Son Heung-min scored four times to secure a first league win of the season for Spurs that Alli had remained in London having previously not travelled to Bulgaria for Tottenham’s Europa League victory over Lokomotiv Plovdiv in midweek. The 24-year-old was offered to Real Madrid in negotiations to bring Gareth Bale back on loan last week and is now being considered by the French champions, with Mourinho refusing to rule out the prospect of Alli leaving on loan.
“I am not responsible for the market, I don’t know how to answer your question in relation to that,” he said. “The only thing I can say is I left eight players behind, they stayed training this morning because they are a big group and Dele is amongst these players. You could see our team, I cannot start with all of them and I cannot have a bench without defenders or the midfielders.
He added: “The way the squad is is a puzzle, the bench is also a little puzzle. To have on the bench Toby [Alderweireld] and Serge [Aurier], and Moussa [Sissoko] and Gio [Lo Celso], [Erik] Lamela and [Steven] Bergwijn, I cannot have on the bench four wingers or three wingers and a No 10 and then no defenders. Everything is a puzzle so, in these two matches Dele stayed out, probably Tuesday he will play and others will stay out.”
Tottenham travel to Leyton Orient in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday, when Alli could be in contention to play for the first time since being substituted at half-time in the previous Sunday’s 1-0 loss to Everton. Internazionale are also reported to have shown an interest in signing him, although PSG appear to be frontrunners at this stage and could be interested in an initial loan deal with an option to make the transfer permanent.
Spurs have said they expect Alli to stay but, asked if he wants to keep him, Mourinho responded: “I want a balanced squad. That’s what I want. Does he need to be sacrificed? No. But a squad is a puzzle. We have a huge squad with numbers that are very difficult to manage. We have too many players for some positions and some of them are paying the price for this.”