Frank Lampard right to ship Dele Alli out of Everton after fresh humiliation at Besiktas on Wednesday
There were question marks raised when Everton allowed Dele Alli to leave just six months after his arrival, but Frank Lampard has already been proven right.
The former England international joined the Toffees on a free transfer, that could have risen to around £40m had add-ons been met but only managed to start one Premier League game before leaving for Turkey with Besiktas on loan.
Everton needed goals and his record suggested he could have added that, yet he was still allowed to leave and people were questioning whether the problem was with the player or with the manager and club.
But it’s clear now that the problem is most certainly with Dele, as his struggles in Turkey have continued and he hit a new low on Wednesday (21 December) in their Turkish Cup game.
After being handed a start, Besiktas found themselves 2-0 down after 30 minutes against third-tier opposition in the cup.
New manager Senol Gunes moved quickly to change things, and Dele was brought off to a chorus of boos before Besiktas turned things around and went on to win 4-2 and progress to the next round.
Now Dele is going to have a mammoth task to get himself back into the team, with a manager and club already publicly declaring that his transfer has been a bit of a failure and there was hope that he could potentially turn it around.
That seems highly unlikely now and the biggest question is no doubt going to be what is next for him. Once his loan deal is done he will still have one year remaining on his contract at Goodison Park.
Surely now he’ll have to look at going to an even less competitive league, maybe in the Championship or potentially even the MLS to get his career back on track.
The damage is done now to his reputation and it’s highly unlikely that anybody will be willing to take a big risk on bringing him in to try and resurrect his previous form.
Lampard’s decision may have seemed hasty at the time in the summer after Dele was barely given a chance, but he clearly saw something that we didn’t or couldn’t, and he’s now been proven right to make that choice.