Conversation Corner: Tottenham vs Manchester City
Eric Dier:
“Eric Dier is with us. Eric, thanks for coming straight off the pitch to us. And I mean what a fantastic performance, 4-1 against City. How’d you sum that one up?”
“Yeah it was a great result. You know everyone is really happy, I think it’s been a long time coming, really, you know that we get a big result like this. We’ve been working very hard and you know the last couple of results, minus the Arsenal one, have been good and we’ve been playing well so everyone’s really happy.”
“The game itself, I mean City got ahead, it’s difficult to turn them around when they get ahead and we needed your goal right on the stroke of halftime. Talk us through it.”
“Yeah I mean it’s great, you know we needed that, we needed something and to get it right before halftime is really good, to you know — everyone goes into the dressing room with a good feeling going into the second half. And I think that showed when we came out for the second half as well. So you know, I’m really happy to get it and hopefully I get some more.”
“It was one of those, sorta — it looked like just a snap judgement. It was there in front of you, you’ve seen the bottom corner and you’ve just think I’m gonna smash it.”
“Yeah my first thought was I wasn’t gonna let that ball get past me and you know I was more worried about them having another counterattack and then I realized that I had more time than I thought. So I just hit it and thankfully its gone in.”
“That is fantastic. Now, I mean you’re talking off camera, that you know you said, people have said at halftime. Lads said ‘Come on, let’s get into them a little bit.’ and it was noticeable in the second half, there’s real energy there.”
“Yeah I think maybe we started off a bit slow, you know which was disappointing and they seemed just to be one step ahead of us a bit. But then, you know from the second half onwards the crowd got behind us and we just kicked on really. And you know we took it up a gear and we were getting tackles in everywhere and you know those teams, they don’t like it when you do that.”
“The second half performance is as good as it gets, Eric to be fair isn’t it? “
“Yeah it’s great. You know I think everyone’s going to be really happy now, we’ve got a lovely day off. You know I think the boys are gonna enjoy that because we’ve got quite a few games and this is just the icing on the cake really for the last couple of weeks.”
“So now you’ve scored 25-yard goals against the league leaders, another string to your bow right? What are you going to do next game? [laughs]”
“Next game? I don’t know [laughs] probably miss a sitter [laughs]. No, you know, yeah that’s great, I’m really happy. I wanted to try you know, shoot more from outside the box so I got the chance. So yeah, I’m really happy and you know thankfully its gone in.”
“Just the last one mate. Take us into that dressing room, it was so down after the Arsenal game, what’s it like now?”
“Yeah I haven’t been in there yet but I’m sure everyone’s very happy. So we’ve, you know we’ve got to enjoy it now but we also got to kick on now and –“
“It’s a statement winner, Eric isn’t it? A statement win, this one.”
“Yeah it is a statement. You know I think we don’t get the credit we deserve, we’re an extremely young squad and you know I hear people say stuff about Tottenham — I don’t like it and I don’t think the other boys like it either. And I think today we showed people that they’re wrong.”
“Stuff like what? Let us in.”
“Well no, I just see that like — Tottenham you know they can’t — we choke against the big teams. You know we don’t put our foot in and we can’t grind out a result and I think in the last couple of weeks we’ve proved them wrong.”
“Well done Eric, thank you.”
“Thank you.”
Next: Toby Alderweireld