Former Tottenham player Graham Roberts has tipped Dele Alli to push on and have an “incredible” season after Giovani Lo Celso was ruled out with injury until October.
The hammer blow was confirmed on Tuesday afternoon after Lo Celso was subbed off in a game for Argentina against Chile on Friday.
While Lo Celso dismissed the severity of the injury after the game – saying, “My problem was only a blow, it is not something to worry about” – it’s proved to be much worse than he thought.
? An injury update on @LoCelsoGiovani.#THFC ? #COYS
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) September 10, 2019
Roberts thinks that Alli can be the player to step up for Tottenham and provide a big boost for Mauricio Pochettino in Lo Celso’s absence, and called for him to contribute “15/20 goals” for his side this season.
I really fancy @dele_official to go on and have an incredible season now for @SpursOfficial 15/20 goals please! COYS
— Graham Roberts (@GrahamRoberts4) September 10, 2019
Can Alli step up?
First off, Alli has scored more than 15 goals in a season twice before in his career.
In the 14/15 season with MK Dons he scored 16 goals in 39 league games. In his second season at Tottenham he scored 22 goals across all competitions.
However, it’s been a case of ever-diminishing returns for Alli since then, with nine league goals in 17/18 and just five league goals last season.
Can he really roll back the years and rediscover his goal-scoring form?
Alli is only just returning from injury himself and has made one 30-minute cameo appearance this season. He didn’t score then and he didn’t score in any of his four pre-season games.
WyScout analysis of the 16/17 season shows that Alli was riding the upper crest of the variance curve, with 0.45 goals every 90 minutes but an xG of just 0.34. That xG didn’t drop too much in the 17/18 season, down to just 0.3, but took another hit in the 18/19 season when it dropped to 0.25.
Still, a goal every four games (presuming he plays the full 90 minutes each time) would result in around 8-9 goals through the Premier League season if he were to replicate that again.
He’ll need to seriously raise his game though – 19/20 stats show his xG at just 0.16 per 90 minutes from an admittedly small sample size.
Mauricio Pochettino could really do with him stepping up but we think 15-20 goals from Alli this season is just not going to be feasible.