‘Sloppy’- Eric Dier offers brutal assessment of Tottenham’s performance at Brentford

England and Tottenham defender Eric Dier says they have themselves to blame after a 0-0 draw against Brentford in the Premier League on Saturday afternoon left them behind Arsenal in the race for top four.

Earlier in the day, Arsenal had already piled the pressure by beating Manchester United 3-1 at the Emirates to jump into fourth with Spurs needing a win to reclaim that spot.

Antonio Conte’s men were largely second best in West London and were quite lucky to even get a point after an Ivan Toney header came off the post late on.

The draw follows a disappointing defeat to Brighton Hove and Albion at home that has since swung the momentum to Arsenal in the race to finish in that prestigious Champions League spot.

More disturbing for Spurs fans is that, in the last two games, they have failed to get a shot on target and they look desperately out of form heading into the most important part of the season.

Key defender Eric Dier who was one of the top performers for the Lillywhites despite the results says they just never got going and will not have to look within themselves to get back on track.

What the Tottenham and England England defender said

The 28-year-old defender was quick to point out that there will still be a lot of twists and turns in the race for top four but they need to get back to playing well and winning games if they are to achieve their target at the end of the season.

He said: “ Last week we should have finished nil nil and we didn’t and we lost, today at least we got a point.

“This is not what we wanted but this is the second best thing after a win I guess.They made things difficult for us and I think we made things difficult for ourselves too.

“I don’t think we created enough chances and I don’t think our play was very fluid as it usually is.

“I just saw that we had no shots on target and that is down to everyone and with the quality we have everyone has to be doing better and we are very disappointed.

“This is not what we were expecting given how we were playing and the chances we’ve been creating as I said we have not got into good positions and we’ve been sloppy in possession as well.

“I think we got better as the game went on and we played high in their side of the pitch but we just still did not create enough to win it.”

Asked if they felt the pressure from Arsenal’s win over Manchester United earlier on, Dier said all they can do is to focus on themselves.

He added: “We know what is at stake and like I said it’s still up to us because we’ve got that North London derby but until then there are still a lot of games not being played and we have to go back training and find out why we are playing this way and get it right.”