Dele: ‘Our commitment is key’

Dele Alli had one clear message in the wake of the midweek FA Cup replay win over Southampton: “We’re all giving everything.”

Just three days after an intense outing and superb 2-0 win over Manchester City in the Premier League, we met the Saints once more with a place in the fifth round of the cup at stake.

The match required a herculean effort from everyone. Leading 1-0 early on thanks to an own goal, Southampton turned things around to take a 2-1 lead and with 12 minutes remaining at the new stadium, our hopes in the tournament were in jeopardy.

Thankfully, we dug deep and won the game. Dele, off the bench after struggling with an ankle knock picked up against City, provided the assist for Lucas Moura’s equaliser before sending a pass forward into the box for Heung-Min Son, who was brought down before converting the resulting penalty as it finished 3-2 on Wednesday night.

With the squad now enjoying a well-earned rest as part of the Premier League’s newly-introduced winter break, Dele emphasised one of the reasons why he believes we’ve been able to grind out back-to-back wins.

“It’s important, the commitment we all have together. We’re all fighting,” he said. “We’ve always been like that, always been together no matter if we’re going through a rough period or a good period – we always stick together.

“Things are going well at the moment, we’re winning games and everyone wants to be part of that. We’re all giving everything.”

In the Premier League, we’re four points behind fourth-placed Chelsea and return to action on Sunday week with a trip to Aston Villa.

“We’re not where we want to be in the league, but we’re still fighting,” Dele added. “We all believe we should be up there, so we need to show that. In terms of trophies, no-one is just going to hand it to us. We have to fight every game, we know that. We have momentum at the minute, and we need to carry that on.”