We have to fight through it - Dier calls on Tottenham to 'embrace' slump challenge

Tottenham has made a poor start to the 2019-20 campaign and Eric Dier is itching to get back in Premier League action.

Tottenham's players react to their loss at Brighton.

Eric Dier has called on everyone connected with Tottenham to "embrace" the situation of being labelled a crisis club as they fight to get its campaign back on track.

Tottenham entered the two-week international break on the back of a 3-0 loss to Brighton and Hove Albion, leaving it ninth in the Premier League.

Mauricio Pochettino's side was also beaten 7-2 by Bayern Munich in the Champions League earlier this month and was knocked out of the EFL Cup on penalties by League Two side Colchester United.

Tottenham returns to action on Saturday with a home match against Watford, and Dier, who started his first league match of the campaign against Brighton, is determined there will be a positive response.

"To be honest, after Brighton, I wanted to play again the next day," Dier told the club's official website. "It's never nice going into an international break on that note and having to wait this long.

"At the same time, it gives you time to settle and put your emotions in the right place. Hopefully that's what we'll do, and we can all push through this as a club. We need everyone - players, staff, fans - to stand up and push through this.

 

"I don't want us to be one of those teams that allows a situation like this [to] escalate and eventually bring us down. I want us to all stand up and push through it and that's the feeling from everyone here.

"We’re a very realistic group, very realistic about our situation and we know we need to do better."

Last season's beaten Champions League finalist has won just three of its 11 matches in all competitions this term, but Dier suggested the recent talk of a crisis at the club shows just how far it has come under Pochettino.

"For me, the main thing is we've been working all together - okay, some people have gone, some people have come in - but working all together over the last five years to get to the point where this is the conversation when you lose two games on the trot," he said.

"We've wanted to get to the point where we are considered a team that if you lose two games like that, you come in for a lot of criticism. Now, we have to embrace the situation.

"We've got to this point and now we need to... as I said to the press after the Brighton game, we can't back down, we need to push forward, push through it, fight through it, everyone together.

"It's always been one of this team's strengths, coming together and getting ourselves out of difficult situations in games, in tough periods. We've shown that so many times and my drive, and everyone's drive, is to get us out of this situation as well.”