Tottenham Hotspur defender Eric Dier has labelled Mousa Dembele as the best player he has ever played with.
The Belgian midfielder spent six-and-a-half years at Spurs, registering 249 appearances for the club before departing in January 2020 for Chinese Super League club Guangzhou City.
He emerged as a key piece in Mauricio Pochettino’s side which challenged for the Premier League title, forming an excellent partnership in the Spurs midfield alongside Kenyan enforcer Victor Wanyama.
Although Dembele often took games by the scruff of the neck with his deft strength and agility on the ball, he endured a number of niggling injury and fitness problems which hampered his progression.
Despite that, his former team-mate Dier never let that get in the way of his judgement and praised Dembele, calling him the best footballer he has shared a pitch with.
He told The High Performance Podcast: “Mousa Dembele and Jan Vertonghen, who were at Tottenham and older than me, I recognised those were the guys that I want to be with and I like the way they lead their lives outside of football. They really had that where nothing affected them. They were extremely humble.
“Mousa Dembele was the best footballer I’ve ever played with.
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“They were like two older brothers to me, they really looked after me and I took a lot of advice from them. They were two people that I looked up to and became very close to.”
Spurs Web Opinion
Dembele was one of the most press-resistant players at Spurs and he would often get the team out of so many problems with his amazing ability to keep the ball. But ultimately, it isn’t too surprising that so many of his former team-mates have praised him highly for that.
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