“They held out in the end”- Ange Postecoglou on performance of two underused Tottenham defenders in Wolves loss

Ange Postecoglou on performance of Tottenham Hotspur defenders Eric Dier and Ben Davies in Wolves loss

Ange Postecoglou praised Eric Dier and Ben Davies for their efforts in Tottenham Hotspur’s 2-1 Premier League loss against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Saying that the two defenders are underused this season is an understatement. This was just the second appearance for Dier under Postecoglou and the first time he completed the 90 minutes.

This was Davies’ third start of the season and the first time he completed 90 minutes under the Australian-Greek manager. Naturally, the two wouldn’t have been at their 100% given the lack of continued playing time.

Their selection against Wolves was largely because of the fact that Cristian Romero picked up a suspension in the 4-1 loss against Chelsea — the same game where Micky van de Ven picked up a lengthy injury.

Dier and Davies will be crucial

Postecoglou was asked to assess the displays of the two Tottenham stalwarts, to which he replied, via Football.London:

“Both of them and Emerson, and even for guys like Brennan and Pierre, who haven’t really started many games because we’ve had a pretty settled line-up. Particularly those two guys coming in [Dier and Davies], I thought their commitment, their endeavour to play our way was there for the whole game.

“They held out in the end. I think you could see they were feeling towards the end but they didn’t let their performance levels drop.”

For those who missed it, Davies started as a centre-back, a position he was used to playing under Antonio Conte, who used him a lot as the left-sided centre-back in his three-man backline.

Dier, by the way, started his career as a midfielder and played as a defensive midfielder for Spurs for a while before being transitioned into a CB. So, essentially, we had three full-backs and a former No. 6 in our backline.

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Like Ange said, the first goal, scored by Pablo Sarabia in the first minute of stoppage time, was very well worked. Spurs probably lost a bit of focus and energy in stoppage time. Dier, and his defensive teammates, lost Mario Lemina, who made a darting run inside the box to score from a scrappy finish. Davies and Dier did as much as they could have in the conditions.

We couldn’t have asked for a lot more than that, in all fairness.