DOUBLE
England Prem title then 3 Lions glory
one objective – to win the game and qualify for the World Cup and we did that.
“I don’t think we can do much more than that. There is still a lot to improve on and I don’t think anyone is going to say anything to the contrary. Luckily, we have a lot of time to do that. Fans are hard to please sometimes but we will do our best.
“I think we are improving and I hope everyone sticks with us and supports this team. We are trying our best to do well.
“That’s all you can do.
Football has a funny way of working and if you do your best hopefully it will work out well for us.”
The memory of England’s performance at Euro 2016 in France still casts a shadow – and Dier knows some players have a point to prove. “France wasn’t a very good experience,” he added. “As a team we have a lot to prove to everyone – and we have a lot of people to prove wrong as well.” A good barometer will be the upcoming friendlies against Germany and Brazil.
“It is good that we play against two big nations to test ourselves,” he said. “If you are going to truly get yourself up and running before a World Cup it has got to be against the biggest nations and this will be really exciting. We can measure ourselves after those two games.” The earliest memory Dier has of a World Cup is the golden generation’s unsuccessful efforts at the 2002 finals in Japan and South Korea.
He added: “My early memories are vague but I think it was Ronaldinho’s free-kick which sent England home from Japan.
“I was still quite young then, eight years old, and I just remember that game.”
And what of club-mate Kane, whose scoring exploits since the start of September have left fans and media alike struggling to describe his awesome goalscoring ability?
Dier said: “He is fantastic. He scored at the end and showed great desire to get on the end and score. That’s what Harry does, isn’t it?
“Like Harry, we all kept calm and didn’t panic. It was a very frustrating night, I won’t deny that. They defended well but our persistence paid off.”