Sometimes the flame that burns brightest doesn't burn as long, sometimes that flame goes to a World Cup and is rushed back for preseason which disrupts his fitness for a whole year, sometimes that flame looks absolutely rubbish at football.
It is time to talk about Dele Alli.
When he arrived as a plucky teenager from MK Dons in 2015, Alli was considered a mix between Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, admitting that he looked up to the latter. He quickly broke into a Tottenham team that lacked options and became a key player in his first season in the Premier League, registering 10 goals, 10 assists and winning the PFA Young Player of the Year award.
"He won't keep it up," the doubters (angry Arsenal fans) said. Instead, he scored 18 times in the league the following season, playing just off of Harry Kane in more of a free role, combining his rigid frame with tricks and flicks, a sixth sense for goalscoring - Alli won his second successive Young Player of the Year award aged 21.
The 2017/18 season wasn't as productive for the midfielder by his own lofty standards, scoring nine and setting up 10 more, but he bagged a couple of memorable braces against Real Madrid and Chelsea. With Son Heung-min and Christian Eriksen taking on more of the goalscoring responsibility, Alli was able to improve more of his all-round game.
Then Gareth Southgate didn't know how to use him at the World Cup with England, the Premier League season started too soon, and Alli and many of his teammates were hampered by muscle injuries throughout the season. Excuses, sure, but valid ones.
Alli never really god going last year, scarcely playing and often starting deeper in midfield to accommodate the diamond set up by Mauricio Pochettino. His defenders would say this also was helping his all-round game (yeah that's really worked out well), but when you have a player so prolific when playing up with the forwards, playing between the sticks, why would you want to lose that? Goals are the most important thing in football, and Alli scored 37 of them in the Premier League alone in his first three seasons at Spurs.
Now, Alli looks the shell of the player he was, disinterested and lacking intensity, lacking that bite that set him apart and, most importantly, that goalscoring instinct.
Pochettino previously said that Alli is a player who relishes the big occasions, who can drop poor performances in smaller matches because he needs the endorphin release of more important encounters, but his display in Spurs' 7-2 thrashing by Bayern Munich suggests otherwise.
A few flicks here and there were all that was reminiscent of Alli's peak at Tottenham, and ultimately he was of no threat whatsoever to the German champions. There were no far-post runs, no space probing, no link up. Nothing. You'd find it hard to believe just two years ago he tore Real Madrid limb from limb.
Some Spurs fans have gone as far as to label Alli an 'ex-footballer', and after his brief showings so far this season, it's not a totally inaccurate description. Pochettino has said that it's time for the squad to begin a new chapter, and maybe Alli needs that too.
That's not to say he can't still turn things around at Spurs - ultimately, their squad is still good, it just seems like a mental problem. This team has grown together and got out of bad situations before, but now they must save themselves from total destruction having now been dismantled.
He's still a top talent, that's for sure, but talent only gets you as far as the work you put in, and right now that appears severely lacking. Time is on Alli's side, and he needs to use it to find himself again.
Source : 90min