The next Dele Alli could be on his way to sign for Spurs

Let’s retrace our steps a bit. Let us cast our minds back to brighter days at Tottenham Hotspur, to a day where the fear of relegation wasn’t a thing, to the days of a Champions League final.

It is now seven years since that showpiece event and a lot has changed since then. The team that day saw the likes of Harry Kane, Heung-min Son, Christian Eriksen, Jan Vertongthen and Toby Alderweireld all take to the field.

Sure, those days were not laden with silverware but it was a great time nonetheless, certainly more positive than 2025 and 2026 to date.

Also at the forefront of that run to the final was a certain Dele Alli. How Tottenham must long for a similar player in the present day.

Remembering Dele Alli’s time at Spurs

Signed in a mere £5m deal from MK Dons back in 2015, Dele arrived at Tottenham as a spritely 18-year-old.

This was not a deal that really sent pulses racing at White Hart Lane but it was not long before the teenager was making an almighty impact in north London.

Out of the EFL, Dele took to like in the Premier League like a duck to water, scoring ten goals and supplying 11 assists in all competitions throughout 2015/16. The iconic moment was that goal against Crystal Palace. It’s remarkable to think that strike came so early into his Spurs career. An England debut at the age of 19 even came that season.

While few goals will have ever topped that moment at Selhurst Park, his numbers only got better at Tottenham. 2016/17 saw the young Englishman score as many as 22 goals in all competitions. He won the PFA Young Player of the Year award for a consecutive season.

Truthfully, this was one of the best young players the division had ever seen. 2017/18 was also kind to Dele, with 14 goals and 15 assists coming his way.

Sadly for the attacking midfielder, things began to unravel. Despite signing a new six year deal towards the back end of 2018, his game started to be flooded with inconsistency and injuries started to hamper him. He missed three months at the start of 2019 with a hamstring injury and missed the beginning of 2019/20 with a similar problem.

The arrival of Jose Mourinho was where things really started to go wrong. Dele netted three goals in his first three games under the Special One but after the pandemic, he was caught in a string of controversial off-field moments and eventually fell out of favour under the Portuguese at the start of 2020/21.

It all ended rather sadly for him in London but he is still held in high regard as one of the best players Spurs have had in the last decade.

Times have changed greatly since then, certainly for the worse. However, 11 years on from when Dele first joined, Spurs could be about to welcome a similarly exciting wonderkid to the club.

Spurs could sign their new Dele this summer

If there is one thing we must credit Spurs for in recent years it is their recruitment and generation of young players.

While Luka Vuskovic and Lucas Bergvall could both depart this summer, with only one of them actually playing for Tottenham, they have been two brilliant signings from a financial point of view, set to bank them a big profit.

Likewise, Archie Gray is cut from a similar cloth, set to have a massive future in the game. You’ve also got Luca Williams-Barnett coming through the ranks. He’s already been celebrated as the club’s answer to Max Dowman.

Dowman enjoyed a remarkably good first season in English football but it was not better than the campaign Eli Junior Kroupi had. The young Frenchman was electrifying in Bournemouth colours and, at a same age as Dele when he moved to Spurs (20), could also be on his way to the Lilywhites.

The Londoners are very much interested in the player but it could take as much as £90m to prise him away from a Cherries team who have no real desire to sell. Alas, talkSPORT reporter Ben Jacobs reported this week on the Last Word on Spurs podcast that they have already held talks with the south coast side regarding a move, lodging an enquiry to discuss his availability and possible payment terms.

To be truthful, Kroupi is the type of player you throw your entire budget at; he is that good and is well set to become one of the best attackers in world football.

At the very least, he could certainly become Tottenham’s best young talent since Dele. The latter had this magical aura about him. Every time he got on the ball, you expected something to happen. Kroupi is very much cut from a similar cloth and like the former Spurs man, has made an instant impact in the Premier League as a teenager.

In fact, he looks like one of the best youngsters we have ever seen in the English top-flight. The numbers prove that too. In 2025/26, the Bournemouth sensation scored 13 goals. No teenager has ever scored more during their debut top-flight campaign.

He’s scored more league goals than Ryan Giggs (12) as a teenager. He surpassed Dele’s tally of eight and and was just one shy of Raheem Sterling’s total of 14 before turning 20.

So, what makes him so good? Well, his finishing is elite. Only four strikers had a better conversion rate than him in the league last season.

He’s got pace and he’s versatile too. Like Dele, he can play behind the striker, while he’s also thrived off the flanks, notably bagging seven goals in six games as left winger for Lorient in 2024/25.

Also wanted by Arsenal and PSG, it would be quite the coup if the Lilywhites could pull this one off, perhaps an even bigger one than the Sandro Tonali move. Should they do so, expect Dele-like performances in the final third.