In his post-match press conference, Gareth Southgate avoided praising Eric Dier directly for his tackle on Sergio Ramos in England's 3-2 win, but in a response to a question about the Spurs man he praised the mentality shown by his players.

What did he say?

We know that Sergio Ramos and (Sergio) Busquets will run the game if you allow them to, between them they have more caps than our entire squad, so we did talk about the mentality of going into the game.

"There's how you want to play, with and without the ball, but then there's the mentality you've got to show if you're going to come to a place like this and win, and you've got to show the nouse and the tactical awareness, but also the nerve to go and take those guys on."

What did he really mean?

Dier was ludicrously booked for his excellent tackle on Ramos in the first half, and Southgate avoided saying anything about the incident directly, presumably to stay on the right side of UEFA.

However, he made it clear that his players had been asked to go out and ruffle the feathers of the stars of the Spain side, and Dier did this brilliantly.

With the ball heading back to Ramos in his own penalty area, Dier began charging at the Real Madrid man and when he took a poor touch, the England midfielder put in a strong sliding challenge and the ball fizzed out for a goal kick. The referee deemed it as a foul and yellow card, but with the scores still at 0-0 it clearly set the tone for the first-half siege that was about to come from England.

Eric Dier gets booked against Spain

Dier's importance

Dier, who hasn't always impressed in an England shirt, clearly stepped up to Southgate's mark against Spain and the manager's comments about an impressive mentality and nerve could see the 24-year-old Tottenham man become increasingly important for his country.

In the World Cup in Russia, Southgate favoured a 3-5-2 formation with just a single holding midfield player, but in the two Nations League ties with Croatia and Spain he has played Dier alongside either Jordan Henderson or Harry Winks, who have both helped out defensively and allowed Ross Barkley to play further forward.

England failed to beat a major nation in the summer despite reaching the semi-finals, but after taking four points from Spain and Croatia in this international break in the new 4-3-3 formation it would seem that Dier and another holding midfielder will be getting more game time for the Three Lions.

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