Rochdale captain Ian Henderson has issued a stark warning to Tottenham Hotspur star Dele Alli ahead of their potential FA Cup fifth-round clash at Spotland Stadium next Sunday.
The Dale secured their passage to the next round with a 1-0 win over Millwall in a replay on Tuesday night, with Henderson scoring the only goal of the game.
Spurs face Newport County in their replay tonight (Wednesday) as they look to set up a clash in Rochdale next week, with the first-leg ending in a tense 1-1 draw.
Henderson has now issued warnings to Spurs star Dele Alli ahead of the potential match, saying that his side were not scared of facing up to the Premier League ace, having faced him in the lower leagues when he was with MK Dons.
As quoted by the Daily Mail, Henderson said: “A lot of our boys have played against Alli before and they dominated him when he was at MK Dons. I don’t know if you have watched any of the games against Rochdale when he was at MK, but the boys dominated the game. For them it will just be case of playing against him again, but now he’s at Spurs.”
Henderson issued a similar warning to Kane, who has also played at Spotland during his time with Leyton Orient.
“You see the young players at this club, they are exceptionally talented. They are aspiring to be in the Premier League, so if they are put up against Harry Kane – and no disrespect to Harry Kane because he is an unbelievable player, an elite soccer player – they are going to do their best to stop him scoring goals. They want to impress because it’s an opportunity to showcase their skill set against a Premier League side,” he said.
OPINION
Henderson is understandably in a defiant mood after beating Millwall in the fourth-round, but his comments look a bit misplaced when compared against the actual results in the games he mentions. The two times Alli faced Rochdale in League One ended in a 3-2 win and a 2-2 draw. It hardly sounds as though Alli, or MK Dons, were dominated in either match. Aside from that, it is clear that Spurs will have a task on their hands if they do get through to the next round. But first they must concentrate on overcoming a stubborn Newport side who came within minutes of a famous FA Cup win last time round.