Tottenham against idea of allowing Dele Alli to leave club in January | Tottenham Hotspur

Tottenham are reluctant to sanction a move for Dele Alli in January. The 24-year-old midfielder is frustrated at his lack of playing time and his representatives are exploring the possibility of finding a fresh challenge for him. He has been linked with a move to Paris Saint-Germain, and especially so following Mauricio Pochettino’s arrival there as manager.

Spurs question whether there will be a market to sell Alli this month – in other words, if an interested club would pay a premium for a player who is battling to recover his top level – while they are not inclined to loan him for fear of reducing their options for the second-half of the season.

José Mourinho, has lost one of his midfielders, Giovani Lo Celso, to a hamstring injury that stands to sideline him for most of the rest of the month and the manager knows he will need to use all of his squad as the matches come thick and fast in four competitions.

With Lo Celso out, Mourinho started Alli in the Carabao Cup quarter-final win at Stoke on 23 December, while it is understood that he had also named him in the team to face Fulham in the Premier League last Wednesday only for the game to be postponed three hours before kick-off.

It would have been Alli’s first league start since the opening weekend defeat against Everton and, annoyingly for him, Mourinho then selected Harry Winks over him for Saturday’s win against Leeds.

Alli’s hopes of a move this month would appear to rest on the club signing a replacement midfielder on favourable terms; they could take back Christian Eriksen on loan from Internazionale but it would be a difficult deal to structure.

Mourinho has said that he does not expect to add to the squad this month as coronavirus impacts heavily on revenues and on the back of a surprisingly large transfer spend over the summer, although the club will be alive to opportunistic moves. Alli is under contract until June 2024.

“I’m not expecting, no,” Mourinho said last week of doing any transfer business in this window. “Times are not easy. The club made a big effort in the summer to try and build a good squad. Honestly, if something good happened to us, it would be a big surprise for me. I don’t feel the right to ask for something.”