Here we will look specifically at the footballing side of Eric Dier’s activities yesterday because this is a football blog. Anyone wishing to pay gushing tributes is welcome to avail of the countless other places online – thanks very much.
If we look at the own goal, what we get is a masterclass of Dier. In one move, he manages to ignore all the Newcastle players near him, and whilst keeping his body facing his own goal, manages to lose control of his mental processing and at the crucial moment, fails to decide between his head and his foot. The ball goes in off his midriff. Unmitigated incompetence.
Eric’s passing accuracy wasn’t good enough, either. 82% is at least 10% too low against this class of opposition.
One positive was duels won, 78% is good stuff, and this was also the case to aerial duels where Dier hit 80%.
Eric made 5 interceptions but managed to lose possession 9 times, on 7 occasions this was in his own half.
He’s not a natural defender. He might think he is. Problem for him is he’s not a particularly good MF either. So I struggle to think where exactly he fits in at Spurs. He’s another player like Dele, Winks et al who would benefit a move away from Spurs.
Japh and rondon in transit
Unfortunately Dier seems to have benefitted lately from a natural Portuguese bias, courtesy of our past and current managerial encumbents. It took Mourinho most of his tenure before he was able to finally recognise, what most of us diehard Spurs fans had long since realised, that Eric is actually a very mediocre CB, then he benched him.
Granted he has leadership qualities, but he is nowhere near the class of Toby or Jan and should be no higher than our 4th choice CB at best. It’s arguable if he is better than Sanchez, although his physicality is useful when paired with the rather more lightweight Romero, but either way he needs to be replaced. He is nowhere close to ever being a top 6 calibre EPL centre back.
Dier is not a Centre Half…..There i said it for those fans who still think that he is the best Centre Half at Spurs….Hopefully we can find a decent Centre Half to play next to Romero who is pleasing to watch and a real Centre Half who I think will go far.
Putting aside the ridiculous mess he got himself into with the actual own goal, the free kick that he gave away which led to it was plain daft. Was pure clumsiness, something I’m afraid Dier is far too prone to.
He has been playing well recently, granted. I still want him gone though along with winks dele and Davies. Western mckenni (yank) can be bought With the money. Baller
Apologies, article should’ve read, “Dier’s long ball saves Spurs’.
You missed the superb long ball that set up the first goal. Dier was good yesterday.