This season, Tottenham Hotspur’s Eric Dier has appeared in 31 fixtures for the north London club, averaging 87 minutes per game in Premier League fixtures.
Recently, manager Antonio Conte called 28-year-old one of the better defenders in England. Dier spoke in an interview with Football.London about his current form, which he feels is the best of his career.
“I feel for me this is consistently my best season I have had so far at Tottenham. My consistency, overall [in any position], I don’t think I’ve ever shown the consistency in the performances that I have shown this season and I feel like my football is the best it has been in my opinion,” Dier said.
Furthermore, Dier discussed his relationship with Conte since the Italian tactician arrived in November. The England international stated that it’s nice to have a manager who goes out in public to give a glowing review when they see them playing well; adding it provides confidence.
“It is always very nice when a manager, especially one like him, says those things, it gives me a lot of confidence, but the thing I pay most attention to from his words are that I have a lot of space for improvement and I think that is really the thing he says that I focus on the most,” Dier said.
“I want to fill that space, fill that potential, as much as possible, as much as he thinks possible.”
Dier then went on to talk about how he and Cristian Romero understand what Conte is demanding from his center-backs.
“That is what the manager wants in the center-backs, especially on the sides, but from all three of us he wants us to break the lines and be aggressive,” Dier said.
“We are playing a back five but it is rarely a back five, someone is always trying to break the lines for us to be more proactive and more aggressive and allow us to press up the pitch. I think that Cuti, one of his best qualities is that he is very aggressive and he reads the game very well and the same for Ben [Davies] as well.”
The Tottenham defender also wasn’t one of the center-backs chosen by England national team manager Gareth Southgate, who went with other options such as Harry Maguire, John Stones, Marc Guehi, Ben White, and Tyrone Mings.