Eric Dier, Tottenham Agree to New Contract: Latest Details, Comments, Reaction

Tottenham Hotspur and Eric Dier have agreed on a new five-year contract that will keep the defender-turned-midfielder at White Hart Lane until the 2020 season.

Spurs announced the news on their official website and shared this photo of the former Sporting Lisbon star putting pen to paper, via Twitter:

Dier joined Spurs in the summer of 2014 as a centre-back and impressed during his first season at White Hart Lane, making a total of 25 starts in the Premier League, per WhoScored.com.

With Spurs lacking a prolific ball-winner in midfield, manager Mauricio Pochettino made the surprising decision to convert the 21-year-old to a holding midfielder, a position where he has started all of the team's Premier League matches so far this season.

According to Squawka's Seb Stafford-Bloor, he certainly has the attributes to make the transition:

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There’s an understandable logic to [his switch to centre midfield], too. Dier has all the superficial attributes required for the position and his physical size, his mobility and his reliability on the ball have made that transition more of an adjustment than a quantum leap. Theory does not necessarily equate to practical value, but it’s a good starting point and reason enough to persevere with an experiment which has, until now, been relatively successful.

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Dier was a relatively unknown player when he arrived at the club a year ago, but he has shown more than enough to warrant a new and improved deal. The England under-21 international has the versatility and willingness to play out wide, as a centre-back or as a midfielder, adding invaluable depth to a squad that will be tested by a heavy domestic and European schedule this season.

With potential contract worries now gone, Dier will get to turn his full attention to completing the conversion to his new role, something that can only help Spurs in the long run. 

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