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LONDON -- Mauricio Pochettino has called for patience with Dele Alli, suggesting that the Tottenham and England starlet is experiencing turbulence on and off the pitch. Alli has scored twice in five league games this season but he has gone off the boil since the end of the August, and he cut a frustrated figure in Spurs' 0-0 draw with Swansea on Saturday, just as in the 2-1 defeat to Chelsea at Wembley. The Swansea game followed a difficult week for Alli, who was suspended for Tottenham's landmark win over Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League and could face an international ban from FIFA following his middle-finger gesture in England's win over Slovakia. And the 21-year-old is currently without an agent after deciding to split with Rob Segal, who has managed his career since he was 15, during the summer and he is reportedly being courted by super-agents Jorge Mendes and Mino Raiola, among others. Pochettino feels that Alli's career is still a balancing act following his meteoric rise, and he explained that he will continue to guide the two-time PFA Young Player of the Year. "He is still very young. His potential is massive. He's been doing very well and it's not easy for a young player to keep this level and show this level in every game," Pochettino said. "It is about maturity. It's about finding your balance in training, competing, in your life, everything. The player is not only what we see on the pitch. He is not a number. "We need to see the player as having a lot of things around them happening. He is not just furniture. There are a lot of things that affect them, that are around them and when you are young, like it was with Dele -- from zero to 100 -- always you need to find your balance. "I am happy with Dele's performance. His potential is still massive but we need to know that he is still young and we need to help him to find that balance to sustain his career." Pochettino, who said Alli would play in Tuesday's Carabao Cup third-round match against Barnsley on Tuesday, continued: "I try to be fair with everyone and try to help every player in the squad. Then either me or the coaching staff will try to help him. But we cannot arrive at every single space or situation. "He needs the freedom to be natural and to express himself. The most important thing is to be there if he needs us and, sometimes, to try to help before he asks. Before he comes, we need to go. Then it's up to the player, like always, to hear or not. "But I think it's only time -- time for him to find his balance because he's still 21. He's so young." Asked if teams had worked out how to stop Alli, Pochettino said: "It's not the case today that the opponent knows how to stop him. I think it's about him, the period he's in. It's about finding the balance to affect his performances. "If you analyse the first five games, in all of the games we were better. We created more chances. He scored against Newcastle, he has had possibilities to score. "He was a little bit like Harry Kane in August. He created more chances and had the possibilities to score a lot of goals, but with less chances he has scored more goals now in September. That happens in football. "We just have to help him, support him and push him every single day. Then, with the talent that he has, it's sure he will score again and play well, no problem."
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