I gave Dele Alli his debut but ‘lost it’ when he smirked at me – I ‘pinned him against the dressing room wall’

DELE ALLI’S former manager Karl Robinson has opened up on the time he pinned the player up against a wall.

The attacking midfielder begun his career at MK Dons before moving to Tottenham.

He was handed his professional debut by then boss Robinson, who has opened up on Alli’s behaviour.

The 26-year-old was once regarded as one of England’s best young talents, but he has since suffered a fall from grace.

Alli is now on loan at Besiktas from Everton and he has failed to impress on the pitch, scoring just three goals in 17 games.

He most recently was accused by a club chief of going AWOL before eventually returning to training.

Robinson told talkSPORT about what a young Alli was like and the time he was left raging at him, saying: “I think that his persona can sometimes look flippant. He can look labored, but he always had that.

“I remember pinning him up against the wall at times.

“I remember him being dragged in a dressing room once by a senior player because he had this look on his face which was a smirk. I lost it with him and a senior player lost it with him as well.

“He wasn’t smirking, it was just him. I remember speaking to him after and he said ‘gaffer, I wasn’t trying to be rude or disrespectful’. When you listen to him you go, ‘Oh okay, I get you a little bit more’.

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“The more you’re with him and the more time you spend with him, the more you understand him and the more he is a kind and caring human being.

“He’s made mistakes. There’s not one of us who haven’t made mistakes in our lives and done things that we regret, but he’s still a human being who still loves football.”

Robinson believes he is criticised too harshly, stating: “If there’s just one mistake he makes, people want to jump all over it.

“At the beginning of his career he made many mistakes on and off the pitch probably, but on the pitch that one moment of magic was what made the headlines.

“That Crystal Palace goal or when he scored two against Chelsea at White Hart Lane – when you start watching the games you realise that he did a lot of things wrong in those games but the moments of magic overshadowed that a little bit.

“Because we were only talking about the positive part of Dele, that became the news story.

“As the negativity spirals on top of him – has he done things off the pitch that have supported him on the pitch? I’d have to say no at stages.

“His next step was Everton and it didn’t work, then it was Besiktas and we’re reading that it isn’t working, but for me I just want to see him stripped back, playing free and playing as him.

“If you leave him to be him, it’s magical some of the things that he can do with a football. We’ve seen that on the world stage.

“If you look at the data he’s one of the hardest-working, highest distance-covered players playing.”

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk