Tottenham Hotspur were beaten 4-2 by Arsenal yesterday, with Mauricio Pochettino making a tactical switch second half.
Dier was selected to start in a holding midfield role for Spurs, but was shifted to centre-back in the second-half.
Tottenham were drawing 2-2 with Arsenal at the time when Pochettino made the tactical switch.
But they ended up on the wrong end of a 4-2 defeat, and Pochettino admitted that his formation switch didn’t work due to individual errors.
“I think it was in a moment where it wasn’t effective with Dier as a midfielder and it was too open down the channels,” Pochettino said.
“With two strikers I think our two centre-back started to struggle a little bit to manage that situation. That was after they scored though. We tried to be a little bit safer. We started to feel that the energy wasn’t there and we wanted to be more compact.
“The main problem for us was to be a little bit more compact and try to be stronger in our defensive face, but in the end we made some mistakes and we conceded.”
Tottenham’s system was given problems after Unai Emery brought on Alexandre Lacazette and Aarom Ramsey at half-time.
Spurs went into the break at 2-1, but they were powerless to resist in the second half, as Arsenal caused them huge problems.
The Gunners ended up winning comfortably, with Jan Vertonghen’s late red card making matters worse for Spurs.
Arsenal have now leapfrogged Tottenham in the Premier League table, with Pochettino’s side no longer in the top four.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
