Sean Dyche has revealed that Kevin Thelwell will seek talks with Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy over the terms of Everton’s deal for Dele Alli as the midfielder continues working towards making his Premier League comeback.
According to the deal struck between the two clubs in January last year, Everton will owe Spurs an initial £10m payment for Dele once he makes his 20th appearance, which would prove problematic for the cash-strapped Blues.
To date, Dele has played 13 times for the club since arriving from North London and if he recovers sufficiently from surgery on a hip problem, it’s conceivable he could play enough games this season to trigger the first payment on a deal reportedly worth up to £40m before his contract runs out next summer.
The former England star admitted publicly to his long-standing problems with mental health and addiction in an interview with Gary Neville earlier this year, revelations that put his struggles on the pitch over the past three or four years in context.
Everton and Thelwell are hoping that Levy and Spurs will take a sympathetic view of the player’s situation and agree reformulated terms on the originally-agreed deal that would allow him to make a proper comeback without worries over how many games he can play would be best for Dele.
“He is not ready yet,” Dyche told the press about Dele who has suffered setbacks in his recovery recently. “When he is fit and well I am sure Kev will go to Tottenham and say, ‘Right, how can we make this work for everyone,’” said Dyche. “It has never been at that stage so we have to wait for it.
“He was training with us, warming up and doing the drills, and he strikes the ball and is knocked back to square one. It was a real blow to him.
“He’d had an operation on his groin. They internally stitched it like an anchor inside his body, and one of them popped out having a shot and that was it.
“It was incredibly frustrating because he was feeling great. He is still a bit away yet; nowhere near training with us but is beginning to work with the sports science people.”