There’s method to Jose Mourinho’s public criticism of Dele Alli, just look at Luke Shaw.
This is the view of talkSPORT’s Simon Jordan, who believes the Tottenham manager’s lambasting of Alli is actually an encouraging sign.
Alli was hooked off in the 66th minute of Tottenham’s win at Stoke and Mourinho publicly criticised the player afterwards
Mourinho criticised the out-of-form star following Spurs’ Carabao Cup victory over Stoke on Wednesday night.
After the match, he accused Alli of ‘creating problems’ for the Spurs team as he played a part in conceding Stoke’s equaliser early in the second half.
Alli was hooked off in the 66th minute and cut an angry figure as he kicked some water bottles in frustration.
Jamie O’Hara blasted Mourinho for his post-match comments, saying it will ‘kill the confidence’ of Alli.
But Jordan takes a different view, suggesting that Mourinho’s criticism shows he cares for the player and believes in what Alli has to offer.
Alli has been linked with a move away from Spurs as a result of his bad form
Mourinho criticising players in public is nothing new, as the likes of Shaw, Iker Casillas, Paul Pogba and Joe Cole will testify.
Jordan thinks something similar is going on with Alli here, claiming this episode can be best compared with how Mourinho treated Shaw when in charge of Manchester United.
He told talkSPORT: “Casillas at Madrid was a very influential figure and I think he wanted to marginalise him.
“Pogba was a very newsworthy figure and wanted to bring him into line with his way of thinking.
“I would draw parallels between Luke Shaw and Dele Alli because despite protestations that he publicly humiliated Luke Shaw on a number of occasions… when you stop bothering with somebody that’s worse than when you bother with them – then you’re in real trouble.
Mourinho laid into Shaw plenty of times but Jordan argues this improved the Man United left-back in the long run
“There will be a school of thought that his treatment of Luke Shaw was very harsh, but I think Luke Shaw’s career is back on the rails in part for the tough love and harsh medicine that Jose Mourinho meted out to him.
“Would I do this? I probably wouldn’t, I’d want to concentrate his mind in private but styles make fights and people do different things for different reasons. Mourinho is a successful manager across the board, across [different] countries.
“There is no right or wrong way of dealing with football players and if Mourinho feels that there’s a reason for dragging this individual into the public domain… he’s a very clever operator Mourinho, there’s always method to his madness.
“I think Mourinho believes that there’s a way to operate with this player. If he didn’t think he was worth his time, Mourinho wouldn’t give him his time.”