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da dobrowin： Eric Dier may not be good enough for Tottenham Hotspur anymore.
The defensive midfielder started the final game of the season against Everton and scored the first goal in a 2-2 draw as the club brought down the curtain on a rather mixed Premier League season.
Indeed, the club finished fourth but lost 13 times- the same amount as seventh-placed Wolves.
And the form of Dier this term, despite his goal-scoring denouement, will surely worry manager Mauricio Pochettino.
Per WhoScored, he has made a total of 20 appearances for Spurs in the Premier League this season – 18 starts and two substitute cameos – with a total of 1,510 minutes clocked on the pitch.
Defensively, he makes 1.3 tackles per game but he also conceded 1.2 fouls per 90 minutes. He makes 2.1 clearances, 1.1 interceptions and 0.6 blocks per game. This is a player who was previously a central defender and has now been moulded into a defensive midfielder but his statistics suggest that this is a player who struggles to truly impact the game when the opposition are attacking.
He is remarkably slow and is a less mobile option than the likes of Harry Winks – injured for the majority of the campaign – or Moussa Sissoko, who is now undisputedly Spurs’ best midfield player.
Dier, amazingly, was reportedly admired by Jose Mourinho and became the subject of a massive bid from Manchester United in 2017.
Per The Guardian, the club wanted to pay £50million to secure the midfielder as they looked to bolster their ranks. They were also prepared to double his wages.
Daniel Levy, the Spurs chairman, stood firm, keeping a player who they surely hoped would improve.
And yet, offensively, Dier is even worse. He has scored three Premier League goals this season, with one coming in the fractious North London derby defeat to Arsenal, but he averages 0.4 key passes per game, 0.1 dribbles and 0.5 shots per game. In other words, he may as well not touch the ball past the halfway line.
He also has an average pass completion rate of 84.9%, which, at the highest level, is middling at best.
This is a player who has represented his country at the World Cup and was a key member of Gareth Southgate’s England squad in Russia. But this season has been nothing short of a disaster.
Spurs are in a Champions League final, yes, but Dier has not played much part in the campaign; he played 90 minutes in the defeat to Inter Milan in the group stages and the draw with PSV Eindhoven but, since, he has either made cameo appearances, been injured, or sat on the bench.
It is difficult to see any club including Dier on their shortlist for the summer, United included, even if their recruitment process has been hopelessly muddled in recent years. There is absolutely no chance of anyone paying £50m for him anymore.
This summer, Spurs will surely undergo a rebuilding process as Mauricio Pochettino attempts to ensure that the club are perennial Champions League finalist contenders instead of being a one-off underdog story.
And a key part of the upcoming transfer window will lie in identifying who should be allowed to leave the club; Dier has to be the first player pushed out the door.
Levy, though, will wonder what might have been and the money he could have received for the midfielder will surely haunt him in hindsight.
The £50 million that was once on his table for Dier now looks like a glaring missed opportunity.