Eric Dier believes that he is enjoying his most consistent season for Tottenham Hotspur and that his fellow defender Cristian Romero is showing exactly what Antonio Conte wants.
The 28-year-old missed out on an England recall this week despite his fine form for Spurs and Conte responded by calling him one of the best defenders in the Premier League. When asked about Gareth Southgate's decision and Conte's praise, Dier simply pointed to what he felt he had done this season for his club.
"I feel for me this is consistently my best season I have had so far at Tottenham. My consistency, overall [in any position], I don’t think I've ever shown the consistency in the performances that I have shown this season and I feel like my football is the best it has been in my opinion," he said.
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"It is always very nice when a manager, especially one like him, says those things, it gives me a lot of confidence, but the thing I pay most attention to from his words are that I have a lot of space for improvement and I think that is really the thing he says that I focus on the most. I want to fill that space, fill that potential, as much as possible, as much as he thinks possible."
Another Spurs centre-back looking to fulfil his potential is 23-year-old Cristian Romero, who put in another eye-catching performance in Sunday's 3-1 win against West Ham United.
The Argentina international shows aggression in his front-foot defending and Dier believes that's exactly what Conte is demanding from the back line.
"That is what the manager wants in the centre-backs, especially on the sides, but from all three of us he wants us to break the lines and be aggressive," he said.
"We are playing a back five but it is rarely a back five, someone is always trying to break the lines for us to be more proactive and more aggressive and allow us to press up the pitch. I think that Cuti, one of his best qualities is that he is very aggressive and he reads the game very well and the same for Ben [Davies] as well."
One disappointment for Spurs' defence on Sunday was that they conceded yet another goal from a set piece to prevent them keeping four clean sheets in five Premier League matches. Set pieces have accounted for four of the past nine goals they have let in in the league.
"That is definitely something we are trying to improve," admitted Dier. "The Premier League is the most difficult league in the world in most things, but definitely set-pieces, a team like West Ham it is one of their best strengths with the size that they have.
"We are definitely making a conscious effort to be better and I think we have been. Today [against West Ham] is a different kind of goal, it’s a second ball and not a first contact so we need to be better."
With Sunday's victory, Spurs finally broke the win-loss-win-loss pattern that has haunted them for much of 2022 and Dier admitted that it had been playing on his mind.
"It is very important [to end it], I can’t hide that it has been weighing on my mind, it has been weighing on all of our minds and to end that now before the international break is really important for us and I think despite the result you can see that we have really improved a lot in the last couple of months," he said.
"Even if you look at the Manchester United game and the Burnley game, they weren’t the results we wanted but I think they were different performances to what you have seen before, and you can see [against West Ham] that our progression is really clear for everyone to see."
Tottenham are now well and truly in the top four race, sitting fifth in the Premier League table and just three points behind Arsenal, who have a game in hand before the two teams face off at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium before the season's end. Dier believes that Spurs still need to fix some issues if they are to qualify for the Champions League this term.
"We have to be more clinical, we have to take our chances more and then at the same time be more resilient at the other end and stop conceding goals like the one [against West Ham], " he said. "It was disappointing again and it creates difficulties for us that we don’t need. To be more clinical, we have had many chances in games. We created a lot and it is about being more clinical."
