Dele Alli opens up about 'heartbreaking' mental health battle that saw him consider retiring from football

Dele Alli has revealed he considered retiring from professional football at the age of 24 after documenting a series of mental health struggles in the recent period of his career. Having burst onto the scene as a 16-year-old at MK Dons, Alli quickly became a household name at Tottenham, twice winning the PFA Young Player of the Year award. Ad The midfielder earned the reputation as a once-in-a-generation talent but his career took a turn for the worse following the departure of Mauricio Pochettino as Spurs manager.

Europa LeagueMourinho handed four-match ban for abusing Taylor in Europa League final21/06/2023 AT 16:35 Jose Mourinho succeeded Pochettino as Tottenham head coach in 2019 but the Portuguese failed to get the best out of Alli. Since moving from Tottenham to Everton in 2022, Alli has struggled to find the form he previously showed during the early stages of his career, and has now opened up on the reasons why. «It's hard to pinpoint one exact moment,» said Alli, when asked by Gary Neville on The Overlap when things didn't feel right.

«Probably the saddest moment for me, was when Mourinho was manager, I think I was 24. »I remember there was one session, like one morning I woke up and I had to go to training — this is when he'd stopped playing me — and I was in a bad place. «I remember just looking in the mirror — I mean it sounds dramatic but I was literally staring in the mirror — and I was asking if I could retire now, at 24, doing the thing I love.