Gareth Southgate reaches a defining question: To Dele or not to Dele?|Barney Ronay

As England approach the World Cup, the manager must decide if the Spurs man’s risky talents can fit with his hard-working, possession-based system

Fail again. Fail better. Fail, at the very least, in a slightly more interesting way. As England’s final friendly eliminators fade from the memory, the forthcoming debate – and it is coming: you can hear it on the wind – over whether Dele Alli merits a place in the starting XI looks set to become one of the main irresolvable discussion points of the run-up to the World Cup.

And not just because all England generations must have their irresolvable discussion points. This is an interesting debate in its own right, a question of talent and form but also of the kind of patterns Gareth Southgate wants his team to adopt in and out of possession.

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from Football | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2uvd88M