Eric Dier signs new four-year contract at Tottenham Hotspur

It was nice waking up to good news about Tottenham Hotspur this morning. According to the club’s official social media, utility defender and Dele Alli bestie Eric Dier has signed a new contract with the club, a four year deal that will keep him in lilywhite through the end of the 2023-24 season.

For a couple of years now, Tottenham Hotspur has been trying to untangle a Gordian knot of expiring player contracts that included Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen, Christian Eriksen, and Dier. While Eriksen was eventually sold to Inter Milan and Jan Vertonghen is set to leave the club on a free transfer next week, Spurs have locked down Alderweireld and Dier to new contracts now, and honestly that’s a pretty good return.

Dier may have benefited as much as anyone else on the team from the arrival of Jose Mourinho. While Mauricio Pochettino had played Dier as a defensive midfielder, there were reports that Dier always saw his long term position in central defense. Dier started the first few matches after football’s restart in the back line alongside Davinson Sanchez and experienced a renaissance of sorts, playing very well and making a strong case for himself as a starter going forward. He’s been suspended the past three matches as a result of going into the stands to confront a fan in the FA Cup loss to Norwich in March, but is set to return for this Sunday’s final match of the season against Crystal Palace.

There is of yet no indication of what Dier’s new wages are, but one can imagine that he got a substantial bump from the £60k/wk he made on his old contract. There were murmurs that Dier had demands of £120k/wk that were holding up the deal, but I’d guess there’s probably a compromise made along the line, or a series of performance escalators that made everyone at least somewhat happy.

With Dier’s signing, a not-insignificant number of Tottenham players have now been extended to 2024. Those names include Dier, Harry Kane, Dele, Sanchez, Ben Davies, Harry Winks, and Lucas Moura. That’s good for the medium term future of the club. Dier extending means that along with Toby and Davinson, Spurs will have a solid defensive spine that they can hopefully augment with young developing talents going forward. (I see you, Monster.)