Jose Mourinho has opened the door for Dele Alli to return to his plans at Tottenham after clear-the-air talks Tuesday following his failure to secure a move to Paris Saint-Germain by Monday's transfer deadline day.
Alli has found himself on the peripheries of Mourinho's sizeable Spurs squad and had hoped to join the French champions on loan in January. However, Tottenham were always insistent that he could only depart if a suitable replacement were to be secured while injuries to Giovani Lo Celso and Harry Kane prompted them to further harden their stance, meaning the 24-year-old faces a fight to remain his place in the Tottenham side, let alone England's ahead of this summer's European Championships.
A calf injury has kept Alli, who has not started a Premier League game since the opening week of the season, from training in recent days, but a conversation between the player and Mourinho has the Spurs boss believing that he will see "a good Dele" as his side compete for success on four fronts.
"He needs to recover from his injury, he needs to be back in training and he needs to have a fresh start because in the last few weeks he couldn't even train. That's the most important thing.
"I had a good conversation with him yesterday, we spoke around this question that you ask me [what he needs to do to feature regularly]. I think we found very common ground, let's say. It's an important period of the season for the team, for him also. We need him. We need a good Dele Alli. We are just waiting for him to be back to normality, to be training with the team.
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"It's not just Dele. When you look -- Dele, Kane, Gio Lo Celso -- we are asking about players that without all three we miss a little bit of some creation, some magic, let's say, around the attacking areas. We need him back. I made that very clear to him. Of course, a conversation doesn't make miracles, a conversation doesn't put a player in great form or without any limitation in terms of fitness. But I believe the conversation was maybe the extra motivation that he needed to be back as soon as possible and to become available for the team.
"We play Europa League very, very soon. We are in the Premier League playing, as you know, every week a couple of matches. We have the FA Cup, I don't believe he will be on time for that one. We have a final [of the EFL Cup] to play in April, so we need a good Dele back and I believe that when physically he is ready, I believe he will be mentally in a good place to go for it."
Notably, Jose Mourinho also indicated that he feels sufficiently confident in Tanguy Ndombele's development to deploy the Frenchman in a deeper midfield role. The club record signing has predominantly played the role of the midfielder closest to Kane, a position that was once reserved for Alli.
Ndombele will be fit for Thursday's trip to Chelsea, a match that will come too soon for Kane as he recuperates from the ankle injury he suffered in the 3-1 defeat to Liverpool last month. However, it will not be long before Tottenham's talismanic centre forward returns to contention.
"We are happy, we were a bit scared when everything happened but now we are much more positive," Mourinho said. "Next week we play Everton midweek, [Manchester] City weekend. For one of these matches he should be back."
