Dier: We’re feeling good for World Cup now

Eric Dier insists England go into Wo r l d C u p y e a r o p t i m i s t i c o f mixing it with the best following encouraging draws with Germany and Brazil.

England completed the 2017 calendar year by following up last Friday’s goalless result with world champions Germany with another against Brazil on Tuesday night.

That was despite being depleted by injuries to the likes of Harry Kane a n d D e l e A l l i , D ie r ’s Totte n h a m team-mates, which saw manager Gareth Southgate calling up players from his time as under-21 boss who have barely featured in the Premier League.

Dier took encouragement from the performances at Wembley.

“As England as a team, we have the individuals now it’s just bringing everything together as a team,” Dier said. “We’re working on that and we’re definitely going in the right direction. The ambition of everyone h e re i s to ke e p i m p rov i n g a n d progressing to be on the level with the best teams in the world.”

Dier says England, knocked out of Euro 2016 by Iceland, should not be fazed, no matter who the opposition.

He added: “Our mentality needs to be that no matter who we’re playing against, we want to try to dominate the game, affect the game and win the game.”

Dier thinks the likes of Joe Gomez and Ruben Loftus-Cheek have shown the depth of talent is present for England. And he hopes the newlyblooded players will keep improving.

“The squad was very depleted, but the young boys have come in and done so well,” Dier added.

“I thought Joe Gomez was just b r i l l i a nt (a ga i n s t Bra z i l ) , Rub e n (Loftus-Cheek) the other day (against Germany). What they need to do is keep improving, keep playing at a high level on a consistent basis.”