Gareth Southgate has stated that Eric Dier remains in his thinking for England but has explained why other younger players got the nod ahead of him for his latest squad.
The England boss has named a 27-man squad for the country's four UEFA Nations League games against Hungary twice, Germany and Italy across ten days in their League A group next month. Many expected Dier to get a call-up back to the squad after his fine form for Tottenham as Antonio Conte's men finished fourth to qualify for next season's Champions League.
However, the 28-year-old was overlooked with Wolves' Conor Coady, Crystal Palace defender Marc Guéhi, Manchester United's Harry Maguire, Manchester City's John Stones, Fikayo Tomori from AC Milan) and Arsenal's Ben White chosen ahead of him.
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"I agree Eric has played very well for Spurs. We know Eric, we don't know some of these youngsters so we felt these are good matches to find out more about them," Southgate said in his press conference on Tuesday. "Eric is obviously playing in the middle of a three. It's a very specific position he's playing in and the team have been excellent at the end of the season.
"So we may well play with a three, we may well play with a four. We've got cover to do each of those things over the next few weeks but he's definitely in our thinking, but at this moment we can't give everybody time on the pitch that we'd like to and we felt that investment in time in Fikayo, Marc and Ben White in particular, those younger ones, ahead of Eric, for this camp would be more valuable to us."
Former Spurs and England defender Ledley King had backed Dier to be in the squad, in an exclusive interview with football.london last week.
"I think Eric's been as good as any, in terms of his consistency this season," the former Spurs skipper admitted. "In terms of his communication and trying to help others, that's something that really stood out. I'm sure he's the vocal leader in the back of that Spurs defence and I think he'd be really unlucky to miss out on the next [England] squad. In my eyes he's done enough, for sure."
