Tottenham's Dele Alli learning to keep his cool as Stoke's wind-up tactics fail

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Tom Collomosse9 April 2018

Tottenham midfielder Dele Alli believes he is finally learning to keep his cool when opponents try to wind him up.

Alli will be a marked man when Spurs face champions-elect Manchester City on Saturday and Manchester United in the FA Cup semi-finals a week later, either side of a trip to Brighton on April 17.

Stoke defender Ryan Shawcross clattered Alli twice in the opening four minutes of Saturday’s match at the bet365 Stadium, but the 21-year-old resisted the temptation to retaliate - and made a far more telling impact by creating the opening goal for Christian Eriksen.

Contrast that with Alli’s first campaign at Spurs, when he was handed a retrospective three-match ban for punching West Brom midfielder Claudio Yacob as Tottenham challenged Leicester for the title.

“I’ve been trying to improve a lot of aspects of my game and I want to keep my head [in those situations],” said Alli. “In the Stoke game, when the first tackle from Shawcross came in, I knew straightaway what he was trying to do.

“He’s a nice guy but that’s the way he is - he’s an aggressive player. I didn’t want to react to him. I wanted to play my own game and I was really happy with the result.”

City will move to the brink of the title if they win at Wembley this weekend though their back-to-back defeats by Liverpool and Manchester United means Tottenham will fancy their chances - especially as Mauricio Pochettino’s side are on a 14-match unbeaten run in the Premier League.

Indeed, their last defeat in the competition was the 4-1 hammering they took at City on December 16.

More significantly, Tottenham are edging towards a third successive season in the Champions League, and look certain to finish as the top London club in the country.

Spurs are fourth, 10 points clear of fifth-placed Chelsea and 13 ahead of Arsenal, who are sixth. Pochettino is likely to make changes for the City game, bringing back Kieran Trippier, Ben Davies and Eric Dier after all three were left out of the starting XI against Stoke.

Top scorer Harry Kane said: “Our win over Chelsea the previous week was massive to create an eight-point gap to them. We’ve got an important game against Manchester City on Saturday and it is important we finish the season strongly.

“We’re on a good unbeaten run and we have to try to maintain that for the rest of the season.

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