‘Devastating’: 27-year-old Everton star speaks about saddest moment in career and shock retirement claim

Former Tottenham midfielder Dele Alli has opened up about his struggles and revealed he thought about quitting football at the age of 24 due to his addiction to sleeping tablets.

The now Everton midfielder talked about his struggles as a child when his mum was an alcoholic, growing up in Milton Keynes, selling drugs and having to be sent back home to Africa to try and get some kind of direction in his life.

Alli also admitted that he’s been fighting to get himself back in the last few years and had decided to get some counselling after being diagnosed with an addiction.

He told Gary Neville in an interview: “At six I was on the road and doing drugs and by seven I was taken to Africa and brought back after six months.

He also admitted he thought about giving up on football: “The saddest moment for me was when Mourinho was manager, I was 24, and there was one session.

“One morning I woke up and I had to go to training, this was when he had stopped playing me, and I was looking into the mirror, and it sounds dramatic, and I was asking if I could retire now at 24 doing the thing I love, for me that was heartbreaking.

“We’re all human and it breaks and it all comes out wrong. I turned to the wrong thinks and I don’t blame Mourinho, I don’t blame anyone, you know my reaction to that wasn’t right, it wasn’t something I had control over,”

Dele won two PFA young player of the Year and played for England at the World but insists that he is hoping that he gets back to being better than he was.