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Tottenham Hotspur: Alasdair Gold blames poor Eric Dier form on mental fatigue

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The English centre-back is currently away with his country as they aim for glory in Qatar at the World Cup. Evidently, he’d played well enough to earn himself a spot in Gareth Southgate’s team but there had been some worrying signs of late in a Spurs shirt.

For instance, in the 2-1 home defeat against Liverpool in the in early November, Dier made one error that led to goal. On top of that, former footballer Frank McAvennie named the 28-year-old as a key reason behind Tottenham’s defensive struggles.

“If they had a top centre-half they would not be conceding as many goals,” he told Football Insider.

“I do not know what Dier has got, maybe he has got something on the manager or Daniel Levy. I do not know why he is still playing. As a striker all you need is a second to get past him.

Apparently aware of all this criticism, Gold defended the player while speaking recently on the Gold and Guest talk Tottenham podcast, claiming that Dier has become a ‘consistent player’ and his mistakes are due to tiredness.

The journalist said (13:55): “Eric Dier, I know he was getting a lot of flack before the season paused, but I think a lot of that was… we always forget about mental fatigue as well.

“I think we can look at the physical side, but mentally I felt in those last few games, he was making mistakes that he’d on the whole I felt started to iron out of his game. He was becoming a much more consistent player last season and at the start of this season as well.

“And I feel like he looked like a tired player in his head really.”

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To be fair to Dier, he has played in every league game for Spurs this term, starting 14 of 15, and has also started all six Champions League group stage games and the signal Carabao Cup match (via Transfermarkt).

And so, if he has suffered a dip in form, it’s not hard to see why Gold has suggested fatigue could be an issue. While he won’t exactly be getting a rest in Qatar at the moment, he has played 20 minutes in England’s two World Cup games so far, so at least he isn’t getting overplayed there too.

Dier has not helped Tottenham keen a clean sheet in any of his last eight games for the club across all competitions and so he is clearly far from his best.

But perhaps, then, this winter break came just at the right time and he can come back and improve in the second half of the season.

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