Dion Dublin has criticised Tottenham centre-back, Eric Dier, after his mistake against Brighton on Saturday.
Dier has been a stalwart in the heart of the Spurs defence under Antonio Conte and has put in a series of solid performances, often setting an example to his fellow defenders.
However, he was beaten far too easily by Belgian winger Trossard on Saturday for Brighton’s winning goal, leading to Dublin telling Premier League Productions (18/04/22 at 12:10 pm): “Dier doesn’t have a defensive brain.
“He has a midfielder’s brain. That’s the way it is. He’s a midfield player, isn’t he?!”
Whilst Dier was converted into a midfielder under Mauricio Pochettino, he has been primarily a centre-back since his youth career with Sporting Clube de Portugal (Transfermarkt).
Dublin continued: “As soon as you turn, that’s it. The goal is bigger. Then you can do whatever you want. If you stay big, then you can push right or you can push left.
“As soon as he puts his feet together, which is what he did, then he couldn’t do anything at all. It’s silly things you know as a defender, which come naturally to you.”
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SpursWeb’s opinion
Dublin’s comments on Dier’s stance and positioning for Trossard’s winning goal are fair and quite inciteful, however, suggesting Dier does not have a defensive brain suggests a lack of knowledge of Dier’s performances this season as a whole.
Antonio Conte is famous for squeezing every bit of talent possible out of players and has claimed that Eric Dier is good enough to be one of the world’s best centre backs (The Daily Mail). It is little surprise then, that Dier has improved leaps and bounds under the Italian. I think Dublin may have been the victim of recency bias on this one.
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