Dele Alli is only 20, but he’s already Tottenham Hotspur’s superstar

Dele Alli is coming off perhaps the most remarkable performance of his career, scoring two goals amidst a stellar showing in a crucial win for Tottenham Hotspur over Premier League leaders Chelsea. But as huge as his two goals were, Alli’s performance showed us something more — they showed us that the young attacker is ready to become a star in the EPL.

Alli is just 20 years old and enjoying rampant success in his second season with Tottenham. He secured a major starting role in his first campaign and largely played well, scoring 10 times in 33 appearances, but had many of the same kinds of inconsistencies and frustrations typical of 19-year-old attackers. As often as Alli left jaws on the floor with his dazzling skills and goal-scoring ability, he would also leave fans frustrated with fits of poor decision making, and at times would simply disappear from matches. Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino stuck with him, though, and this year he’s been reaping the benefits of that faith.

So far this season, he’s made 19 league appearances and has already matched last season’s goals mark with 10 to his name. While he’s well short of the nine assists he served up a year ago, his creative talents have hardly run dry — he’s been asked to play a more direct attacking role instead, as evidenced by his usage against Chelsea on Wednesday.

That role is one that Alli has thrived in, and has seen him take major steps forward in his development. He still had some of those moments of inconsistency and frustration, but as the season has worn on, those moments have become increasingly rarer — and in recent weeks, they’ve all but disappeared. In their place has been a seeming maturity beyond his years, a more obvious and visible commitment and willingness to do whatever needed doing for his team, no matter what it took.

As impressive as Alli was on the ball scoring goals on Wednesday, his recent growth was on display when he wasn’t on the ball. When Tottenham were out of possession, he did one of two things: go flying back to track or mark a midfielder on his side of the pitch to slow Chelsea down, or press and harass the defense when they were passing the ball around to try and force a mistake. He had Cesar Azpilicueta in fits all game long, and that’s not something we’ve often seen this season.

When Spurs had the ball and Alli wasn’t the one on it, though, was perhaps his most impressive look of the day. He was constantly in motion, rarely standing around waiting for the ball to come to him as we’ve seen from Alli in the past. Instead he was steadily probing around, looking to create or find a hole in Chelsea’s defense, or find the right supporting run for the sequence of play Tottenham were building.

That constant effort and motion is what helped create both of Tottenham’s goals. Twice earlier in the first half we’d seen Alli make runs between Azpilicueta and David Luiz, waiting until he’d turned the former and was behind the latter every time to penetrate Chelsea’s defense with ease. That effort finally paid off when he did it a third time in first half stoppage time, this time using that opportunity to rise up for a cross from Christian Eriksen to score — and then an effort repeated to the same results early in the second half.

It’s easy to look at the run Alli is on — he’s scored seven goals in four games, including three straight braces — and dismiss it as a random hot streak. And while he’s certainly in a fantastic vein of form, looking at the steady growth he’s had all season makes this kind of form look a lot less random and more like the result of a lot of hard work paying off. That’s not to say that he’s going to score a brace a game in perpetuity — though that would be a lot of fun — but the development and maturation that we’ve seen Alli go through this season suggests that he’s reached a point where a higher quality of overall play is the new normal for him, not the exciting exception.

Simply put, Alli is a step away from becoming a true EPL star. Where exactly his ceiling lies is unknown, but it’s certainly significant, and one that will be of massive value to Tottenham on the pitch. Hopefully they’ll be able to make full use of him for a long time to come, and not ultimately be forced to sell him as they were with Gareth Bale.