Dele Alli interview
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Can someone binnify this so I don't have to sit through 40 odd minutes of Neville and Dele?
Kinda feel sad for him, I still hoped we'd signed him all those years ago....you don't find homegrown talent like that for £5m, made the transition from league 1 to top level Prem standard look natural.
Honestly had the world at his feet and at 1 point was looking on course to be one of the best players England had produced in a decade......very sad his career went to smithereens at 23.
Honestly had the world at his feet and at 1 point was looking on course to be one of the best players England had produced in a decade......very sad his career went to smithereens at 23.
His mum and dad were shits to him
His mum was an alcoholic
Age 6 he was abused by a family friend
Age 7 he was smoking
Age 8 he was dealing drugs
Around the same time he was dangled off a flyover by an adult male
He was then put up for adoption by his mum.
Age 18 his biological parents wanted a say in his contract with spurs, saying his adoptive parents were taking advantage of him. Dele told them to fuck off and hasn't spoken to them since.
He only rated Poch as a coach and now Dyche (but that's only because its his current manager).
He became addicted to sleeping pills but is seeking professional help, and it's rife among footballers apparently.
Age 24 he stood in front of the mirror, and wanted to retire.
Pretty much it.
Thank you sir. Jaysus, bad craic right enough.
Yeah I understand that he had a difficult time growing up, I mean it's horrific. But, how did it suddenly affect him at 23?
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Not our job to discover, this is what you pay good money for a psychologist to undress.
Never really had an issue with Dele on the pitch when we've faced him or in other games, his outside life maybe very eccentric and a bit too laddy for my liking but I understand that for a young man with a lot of money but no one can really judge people outside of what you see.
For example on SCM let's pick a few names, I really like Modo, Fabio, MoMo, Bradley but come to meeting and getting to know them in person, I might totally think differently.
Same with the few people on here I can't stand, might end up offering to give them a blowjob once I got to know them, so this is why you can never be too judgemental.
Never really had an issue with Dele on the pitch when we've faced him or in other games, his outside life maybe very eccentric and a bit too laddy for my liking but I understand that for a young man with a lot of money but no one can really judge people outside of what you see.
For example on SCM let's pick a few names, I really like Modo, Fabio, MoMo, Bradley but come to meeting and getting to know them in person, I might totally think differently.
Same with the few people on here I can't stand, might end up offering to give them a blowjob once I got to know them, so this is why you can never be too judgemental.
I just realised that people from his former life could have contacted him. Pestering him for money or whatever.
I doubt it suddenly affected him, as much as that submarine suddenly imploded. Years of pressure finally reaches a critical point.
Those early experiences are sometimes impossible to forget, and can fill someone with anger into adulthood. You can put up a front but those childhood memories are hard to put away. I am 48 now but some of the shit I went through at school still bothers me to this day, and also some of my own fathers behaviour. He is just 23, and the fact they tried to intervene at 18 is playing on his own emotional trauma. Bad childhood experiences can be a cunt that follows you to death.
Who said anything about seeing it coming Nomad!!!!
Probably just buy ya a pint mate.
It hits anytime to be fair and in all kinds of ways. We had a pretty shitty upbringing between about the age of 10 and 17, when things changed in our family dramatically. I basically went on a 15 year bender of stupidity while trying to still play the level headed kid and then (very young) level headed parent, while drinking myself into stupidity and doing all of the stupid things that sort of numbing existence leads too. Then it came out in different ways, like frustrations in employment which I couldn't vent, anger at how I was treated leading to general "angry young man" syndrome stuff (I was never violent or anything, just verbal and depressed, anxious and generally a moody cunt). All because I lacked the balls to open up, or the balls to take action about it in retrospect. Then it all came full circle when coming face to face with the perpetrator about 2yrs ago outside work, where I was threatened pretty much in the same way we were as kids, threatened verbally, called juvenile abusive names, threatened that someone had been given a hit to take out on me, stupid empty verbal stuff and suddenly you're this shit scared teenager again. People always say things like "why are the victims only coming out about it now", years later. It's not straightforward, it's completely fucked and all sorts of complex.
Yeah, I kinda posted it without thinking. Pretty dumb of me, especially since I myself have had issues. Even today I go through scenarios in my life that played out ages ago.
Maybe in the back of my mind I thought someone as successful as Alli was untouchable
Yep. It's a real shame that he wasn't able to get some proper therapy before going into the pressure cooker of professional football.
I'm glad we now know what he's been dealing with. Incredibly brave of him to speak out and he has my total sympathy. I really hope his career isn't done and that he can get back to it - for a while back there he was a hell of a player.
Either way, I hope he can find a way through his trauma and live a more settled life.
Yes, clinically thinking this is on the money. He deserves compassion and support. I hope this is the start of him rebuilding his life on firmer ground.
Sometimes it's easy to imagine that successful people, with plenty of money, are shielded in some way from the difficulties that many of ordinary folk will face, and in some ways this can be so.
However, no amount of money can protect a person from their memories and experiences such as these. Mental health issues can affect anyone and I can only sympathise will Dele here. It has been clear for some time that something was not right and he has been very brave to open up about this now. Hopefully this will help not only him, but also others who have had to face these issues.
However, no amount of money can protect a person from their memories and experiences such as these. Mental health issues can affect anyone and I can only sympathise will Dele here. It has been clear for some time that something was not right and he has been very brave to open up about this now. Hopefully this will help not only him, but also others who have had to face these issues.
Good post Basan.
How would you explain the timing or what triggered the timing should I say that caused the downfall in his career and personal life? Because he was riding high at the top of English football for a good few years under Poch in between all of that,
Obviously before this interview none of us were aware of any of this and we all saw the Spurs amazon series and came to conclusions it was a simple case of new manager coming in (unfortunately for him, Jose) and passing on a few uncomfortable truths and we all linked that to his loss of love, passion call it whatever for the game.
Or in short, would his career/life gone down the way it would if he didn't have to look in the mirror and remind himself of his childhood during those hard times under Mourinho, behind left out the team etc.
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it's a difficult one alright, hope everything's ok now and you're getting there.
Sounds like a culmination of a lot of things over a period of time. Perhaps it was easier for him to ride the waves when things were going so well with Spurs and England, with some sympathetic management, easier to shut out those thoughts and feelings.
As you say, when things started to change and he looked in the mirror, no doubt he was forced to confront these things again.
To be honest, unlike the modern fascination / fantasy that you can apply some kind of evidence based objective lens to these things, the answers to the timing / aetiology / triggers etc are almost always idiosyncratic and deeply personal to the person involved.
Hence a depth psychotherapy (one that is long term and works successfully with serious issues / deep trauma / personality issues) tends to look somewhat (necessarily) different for every case..
Hence a depth psychotherapy (one that is long term and works successfully with serious issues / deep trauma / personality issues) tends to look somewhat (necessarily) different for every case..
Is it that crazy though, when you really think about it?
Can you not appreciate how incredibly difficult it would be for a club to identify that? & it wasn't just his club, his family (or nearest family in his case) and friends.
Unless the player himself comes out and confronts his demonic past it's impossible to read behind the eyes or fake smile of someone driving around in their fancy cars, walking around in their expensive gear, chatting away freely with players/staff.
Thank you Buddha. I was struggling to make those points so succinctly.
I thought you did just that!
Yes, I hope he builds himself a happy, meaningful life, full of love and self respect.
And I also hope he's shit at footy for Everton.
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