Former Tottenham star Dele Alli has joined Besiktas from Everton on a season-long loan, with an option to make the deal permanent.

Alli heads to Turkey after making two substitute appearances for Frank Lampard’s team this term in their first three Premier League games of 2022-23, while he was not named in the squad for the Toffees’ Carabao Cup win over Fleetwood Town.

The 26-year-old midfielder, who has 37 caps for England, only left the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for Goodison Park in January, but he has struggled to impress for the Merseyside club and has decided to move to Istanbul for more game time.

Alli made 13 appearances for Everton – starting just one game – and it had been reported that the Toffees would have owed Spurs £10m if he played 20 times.

Alli was a star player at Spurs in the Mauricio Pochettino era, scoring 67 goals across 269 games, but failed to hit the same heights under subsequent managers and found it harder and harder to work his way back into the team.

He averaged 22 goal contributions every season between 2015 and 2018 and helped Tottenham reach the Champions League final in 2018-19, but they were beaten by Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

In total, Alli spent seven years at Tottenham and was named in the PFA Team of the Year in both 2015-16 and 2016-17.