Dele Alli smiles, his features soften and there is a nervous little laugh. He does this a lot. It is one of his defence mechanisms, a way of pushing back at all the hurt. He knows that now.
Gary Neville is interviewing him for The Overlap and has just asked about his childhood. “I think there were a few incidents that can give you a kind of brief understanding,” Dele says, and there is a pause, an internal struggle – of the type he has wrestled with throughout his life. And then Dele kicks open the window to his soul.
