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Tottenham Hotspur: Alasdair Gold discusses Eric Dier

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Tottenham Hotspur journalist Alasdair Gold has been sharing his thoughts on Lilywhites defender Eric Dier and the aspect of his game that Gold thinks is a weak point for the Englishman. 

This comes after Gold made an appearance on a recent Facebook Live video from Football.London where he spoke about a range of topics concerning the north London club.

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On the subject of Dier, who recently came out and defended himself over the criticism he has received in recent weeks about his defensive capabilities on the pitch, Gold had this to say about the player. (12.27)

He said: “Something that hinders him I think is distribution.

“I think he has the ability to pick out a really nice pass. He has the ability, in my mind, to do the [Toby] Alderweireld cross-field balls, but maybe he believes he’s even better than that and I think some of his passing is so awful, it puts him back under pressure and he puts himself in these silly scenarios.”

Spurs signed Dier back in the 2014 summer transfer window from Portuguese club Sporting Lisbon for a fee of £4.5 million.

Since then, the 27-year-old, who is currently valued at £22.5 million, has made 276 appearances for the north London club in which he has managed to score 11 goals and provide 11 assists along the way (per Transfermarkt).

TIF Thoughts on Alasdair Gold’s comments on Dier… 

Given how only Alderweireld has made more long balls per game (4.3) than Dier (4) so far in this current Premier League season for outfield Spurs players, this backs up Gold’s point that the Englishman is capable of making these long, cross-field passes to push the ball and his team up the pitch.

Do you think Dier's passing is good enough for Spurs?

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However, going off what Gold said, it does seem that Dier has some work to do with some of the other passing aspects of his game, so he doesn’t get put under pressure or in any silly scenarios, as Gold said in the video. One example of this could be where his passing during the club’s recent defeat to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final was described as ‘sloppy.’

With Dier playing 90 minutes in each of the three matches that interim Spurs coach Ryan Mason has taken charge of since Jose Mourinho was sacked, this suggests that Mason is a fan of Dier and will stick with him in the team until the end of the season, which will give the defender a suitable amount of time to work on his passing where possible.

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