‘Couldn’t deal with it’: Micah Richards says 28-year-old Tottenham player got absolutely destroyed yesterday

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Micah Richards believes that Tottenham Hotspur defender Eric Dier was poor yesterday, and got destroyed by some of Liverpool’s forwards.

It was another disappointing result for Tottenham, who lost their second home league match on the bounce.

Speaking on BBC Match of the Day 2, Micah Richards assessed Tottenham’s performance.

Spurs once again started the game slowly, and found themselves 2-0 down at half-time for the second league game on the bounce.

Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah scored a first-half brace that ultimately ended up deciding the game.

Salah was left unmarked in the box for Liverpool’s first goal, and his venomous shot gave Hugo Lloris no chance.

Lloris won’t be thanking Eric Dier for his back pass just before half-time that played Salah through again.

The Egyptian made no mistake when one-on-one with Spurs’ captain and scored what turned out to be the winner.

Richards was very critical of Dier yesterday, and thought the centre-back was poor.

The 28-year-old was forced to play as the right-hand centre-back in Tottenham’s back three and looked uncomfortable at times.

There was a lack of communication between Dier and Emerson Royal that ended up giving Liverpool too much space on that flank.

Dier was poor yesterday – Richards

Richards analysed Dier’s performance on Match of the Day 2, and thought he struggled to cope with Darwin Nunez.

“It was interesting because Dier normally plays in the centre of the three but he played on the right of the three, so he was up against Nunez who was just destroying him at times,” Richards said.

“He just couldn’t deal with it and it kept happening time and time again, and it just kept happening, which I didn’t understand.

“You’d think you would try and press early, but he was often out of position and didn’t know whether to stay with Nunez or go with the runner of Robertson and just got himself muddled up so many times.”

Eric Dier’s form this season has earned him a place in Gareth Southgate’s England squad just in time for the World Cup.

He tends to play as the organiser in the centre of Tottenham’s defence, flanked by Cristian Romero and Ben Davies.

However, he was forced to play on the right with Davies and Clement Lenglet picked alongside him.

Gary Neville commented on Dier pushing up on the right wing, and compared him to Dejan Kulusevski.

However, Richards though the defensive contribution from Dier was poor yesterday, and his performance would have worried Tottenham and England fans.