The Man City Thread*******

Take it up with Jose...

Hans Moleman wrote: Eric Dier  sweet jaysus you haven't even admitted defeat on that one  As for Kane, he isn't anywhere near the player he was a few years ago. I'm not sure how it's even an argument.

Er, 27 goals in 31 games, Spurs and England?

Which you might know if you ever actually saw him play live. Still, I suppose you can always make do with this:

1 min 54 secs, away to Dortmund in the Champions League, 05 March 2019: "Harry Kane...  one of Europe's very best, on Europe's biggest stage..."

He likes the Champions League. From Nov.2019: "Harry Kane's double for Tottenham Hotspur against Olympiacos on Tuesday made him the fastest player yet to reach 20 goals in the UEFA Champions League era, making that mark in just 24 games."

Still, who needs mere facts, when you've got wild opinions to spare...

You probably aren't aware of the background to this.

During the summer, Dier had to have an operation for a burst appendix. This knackered his immune system, so that even when he recovered his normal strength and fitness, he would train for two or three days then pick up a bug and have to be sent home again. As a result, he's only been able to be used sparingly.

More generally, Dier and Mourinho have history - from 2017: "It is understood Woodward made a bid for the England player – on the instructions of José Mourinho – but Levy knocked it back."

And Poch reportedly fell out with the player after he was seen chatting warmly in Portugese to JM after a game at OT which Spurs had just lost:

Fast forward to this season, where Dier had been very much in-and-out of the Spurs team under Poch. Yet when JM took over, he immediately picked Dier in his first starting line-up, an away victory at WHU. All of which fits in with JM's normal modus operandi. He likes to play two Defensive Midfielders, but doesn't seem to trust those like Ndembele and Winks who like to run with the ball (i.e. risk losing possesiion), meaning his first choices are Dier and Sissoko when fit.

Moreover, JM likes players who are versatile and he's already used Dier at FB, or CB eg on Wednesday evening against Norwich, when he took off Winks for Dier in midfield on 56 mins to protect a 1-0 lead. Then when Norwich equalised, he brought on Gedson (attacking player) for Vertonghen and moved Dier to CB in Vertongen's place.

All of which points to Mourinho being very much a fan of Dier, trust me.

I know. I was at the game. It was clearly tactical.

And if you'd only googled a bit deeper, you'd have seen that after 20 minutes, Spurs were already 2-0 down at home to a poor Olympiakos in a must-win game. So out of the two holding midfielders he had started with (Dier and Winks), Mourinho then took off the more defensive of the two and brought on the attacking Christian Eriksen. He helped inspire Spurs to four goals without reply. (Two of them from a certain H.Kane btw ).

So if there are any lessons to be learned from that it is that JM must rate Dier somewhat if he started him ahead of Eriksen in the first place, and that Mourinho's's also prepared to take bold action early, to retrieve a potential disaster, even if it means jettisoning one of his favourite players.

Meanwhile, Dier played the full 90 minutes four days later in a 3-2 win against Bournemouth. Erikssen was an unused sub and Winks came on in the 94th minute, basically to waste time.

I was at that one, too.