Karren Brady: Dele Alli should be at his peak but he’s getting booed at Besiktas, his career is a warning to youngsters

THE collapsing career of Dele Alli is a warning to every young footballer.

But what kind of a warning?

And what of the future of Aaron Ramsey?

With Arsenal, he bordered on becoming one of those midfielders who would play great football into his late-ish 30s, like Luka Modric.

That intimation of fame appears to have been lost as he downsizes clubs until you wonder where he will stop.

The same is true of Dele, although he’s only 26 against Ramsey’s 32 and has already slipped into Turkish football, scrapping to be a regular first-teamer on loan with Besiktas.

No one quite knows why this has happened.

He has slowed from the exhilarating ball player he was in his teenage years with Spurs, a perfect contrast with Harry Kane, whose early days were nowhere near so impressive.

But as the England captain was consolidating scoring goals for his club and country, Dele was sliding away from his World Cup 2018 place, on to Everton and then to the other side of Europe where, over Christmas, he was booed by his own crowd.

As a Cardiff kid, Ramsey was talked of in the same terms as Dele and Arsenal were his choice among a host of Premier League clubs.

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A double leg fracture delayed his entry into the Gunners’ gallery of great players but he smashed his way into it with energy and goals to spare from 2014.

Over the next five years he was on the FA Cup-winning side three times and was so significant for Wales in their historic Euro 2016 run to the semi-finals that he was named in the team of the tournament.

Three years later, Juventus moved in with what clearly was an irresistible offer of a reputed £400,000 a week and the player with an engine that would have worked an airline, flew off to Italy on a four-year deal.

Few would have guessed the then 29-year-old’s career was on a slide.

Maybe his lifestyle isn’t what it should be but brief research uncovers nothing more than a penchant for pretty girls. If that is career-damaging, thousands of star players wouldn’t have made it.

Karren Brady on Dele Alli

But after one successful season was followed by two undistinguished, he regressed to Rangers in Scotland and then Nice, for whom he scored in the first minute of his Ligue 1 debut in August.

Since then? Zilch.

Ramsey played all but three minutes of Wales’ three matches at the World Cup last month.

A man once described by Steven Gerrard as “the best attacking midfielder in the Premier League” is off the radar, perhaps soon to fetch up in the USA. Maybe Ramsey grew too old too soon.

Dele should be at his football peak, not plodding away all but out of sight.

Shortly after joining Spurs for £5million from MK Dons in 2015, he was named PFA Young Player of the Year in consecutive years and was also named in their Team of the Year.

Then England called.

The peak was the 2018 World Cup, when the Three Lions reached the semi-finals, but even then, at 22, he wasn’t quite the player he used to be.

A season later, he was out of the squad and on the sidelines.

That’s the stuff films are made of, except that the hero sees the error of his ways and fights his way back and into the team in the final reel, Rocky style.

As I said, we don’t know what errors he has made or if it’s just that the motor is running out of juice early.

Maybe his lifestyle isn’t what it should be but brief research uncovers nothing more than a penchant for pretty girls.

If that is career-damaging, thousands of star players wouldn’t have made it.

George Best did supremely well but the cause of his problems wasn’t beautiful women but booze.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk