Dele Alli says being called 'lazy' by Jose Mourinho on Amazon Prime's fly-on-the-wall documentary of Tottenham's 2019-20 season "stuck" to him but has revealed the Portuguese apologised to him a week later - which was not featured on the show.
In an emotional interview with Gary Neville on The Overlap podcast, Dele revealed he had spent six weeks in a US rehab facility to address an addiction to sleeping pills which began as a response to a traumatic upbringing, including being molested by a friend of his mother aged six.
The Everton midfielder also addressed his drop off in form since around 2019 and says he has found it hard to shake the 'lazy' tag following Mourinho's comment.
In one of his first training sessions after succeeding Mauricio Pochettino in November 2019, the then-Spurs boss told Dele "I understood already that you are a f*****g lazy guy in training" in front of the rest of the squad -- and the scene was featured in Amazon's 'All or Nothing'.
“I’m glad you asked me about that [Jose Mourinho calling me lazy], so that lazy comment people all love to bring that up, that interview obviously that was on Amazon," Dele told Neville. "He called me lazy – that was the day after recovery day.
"A week later, he apologised to me for calling me lazy because he’d seen me actually train and play. But that wasn’t in the documentary, and no one spoke up about that because it was only me and him.
“In the team meeting, he called me lazy but then one on one, I think it was on the pitch he apologised for it. And I didn’t think anything of it at the time because I know myself – I’m not lazy.
“Yeah, that’s what I mean, what you see sometimes isn’t the way it really is. I think, especially now with social media and all these things, we can really portray something that isn’t real. After that, I think people definitely tried to use that, for some other decisions.
“I think other coaches maybe, for other reasons why I weren’t playing, they stuck to that – lazy one – because it was kind of an easy, easy one to use. And the problem was probably more than that, I think.”
Dele left Spurs for Everton in January 2022 before joining Turkish club Besiktas on loan for the duration of last season.
He insisted he does not blame Mourinho or anyone else for his drop off after establishing himself as one of the top young players in Europe at joining Spurs, having moved to north London from boyhood club Milton Keynes.
"I’m proud of who I am today and don’t blame anyone, I thank a lot of people," he said.
"I thank a lot of people for the tough times they created for me because I think that made me a tougher person because that made me braver, made me stronger and it allowed me to overcome challenges that if they were just sprung on me, maybe I wouldn’t be able to deal with.
"But, I have a lot of people to thank because they did help give me the hunger and the passion to keep going and keep fighting and prove them wrong.
“I think the main thing for me is I want to prove myself right because I know how good I can be as a player and as a person and it’s important for me that this battle against myself, I will win, and I do prove myself I was right about all these things.”
