Opinion: Can Eric Dier get back to his best under Jose Mourinho

Mauricio Pochettino certainly had his favourites during his final year in North London, but Eric Dier was not one of those people. With Harry Winks, Tanguy Ndombele, and Moussa Sissoko ahead of him in the pecking order, Dier was limited in terms of minutes.

 

Even when he did feature this season, the majority of his minutes came at central defence, rather than his normal midfield. It’s fair to say that Dier looked less than inpressive in defence against Sheffield United too.

 

Back when Dier first broke into the regular Spurs first team, he was seen as one of the best and brightest in the country. Dier even went on to play for and captain his country of England.

 

The midfield man say in front of the back four and cleaned up for 90 minutes without error. He flew into challenges, covered insane amounts of ground, and passed the ball off to the more creative players. It was simple, defend, win the ball, move it on.

 

However, in the past two years, I would argue that Dier has lost his way. He has become too slow and lumbering to keep up with attackers. His defensive sense has all but vanished. And the majority of his passes are telegraphed. He has overcomplicated his game and tried to move further forward into midfield when he was thriving as a pivot.

 

He has now been handed a lifeline with the introduction of fellow Portugeuse-speaking Jose Mourinho. The Special One seems to be a fan of Dier, even starting him in his first match away to West Ham.

 

With the second chance of a lifetime, could Dier get back to the player he once was? If Mourinho drops him back into a pivot role, gets him to work on his fitness and mobility, and gives him game time, I don’t see why not.