England midfielder Eric Dier has thanked captain Wayne Rooney for letting him take the free-kick that fired them into the lead against Russia.
Eyebrows across the nation were raised when Dier, 22, lined up the set-piece in Marseille on Saturday – hardly surprising considering he’d never scored a free-kick for his club Tottenham Hotspur.
In fact in his two seasons at White Hart Lane he’s only scored one of his five Premier League goals with his right-foot, a cracker against Manchester City, with three being headed in and the final one a left-footed finish from close-range.
Dier doesn’t get a look-in at club level, with dead-ball specialist Christian Eriksen usually the man on free-kicks and corners for Spurs.
In a game where England boss Roy Hodgson received a huge amount of criticism for putting striker Harry Kane on corners, having defensive midfielder Dier take a free-kick that close to goal seemed like a massive mistake. Until he buried the shot into the top corner.
“We have Christian Eriksen at Tottenham, who’s quite prolific from free-kicks and scores a lot of goals, so I don’t really have any complaints there,” Dier told the FA’s official website. “But thankfully I got the chance here and I took it.
“Obviously Wayne [Rooney] took the first one, so I think he put his trust in me, he’s seen what I can do during the weeks of being together and I’m grateful for that. And thankfully I scored, it could’ve been different if I’d missed, lots of people probably would have been judging that decision, but thankfully it went well.”
Kane was criticised for the quality of his corner taking against Russia, with just one delivery forcing a shot on target. Hodgson has maintained that Kane, who’s scored six headed goals in the Premier League in the last two seasons, will remain on corners.
Dier added: “More and more now in football, they’re [set-pieces] a massive part of it, I think that since I’ve started watching the Euros, I’ve seen so many goals from set pieces.
“I’m sure there’s probably more than 50% of the goals have been from set pieces, so they’re a massive part of football nowadays.”
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