Eric Dier is on a mission to “shut everyone up” – insisting Tottenham can challenge for honours despite their lack of signings.
Spurs failed to add a single player in the summer – the first Premier League club to do so since the current transfer window system began in 2003.
But Dier reckons Tottenham have already proved their squad is good enough to beat the best teams in England and Europe.
And even though their domestic rivals have splashed huge cash this summer, Dier has taunted them by suggesting they have not actually improved their teams.
The England midfielder, 24, said: “For the last three years we’ve been challenging the best teams in the country.
“And last year we were challenging the best teams in the Champions League with the squad that we have here today.
“The manager said it before – we’re in a fight but we’re having to use different tools.
“And we’ve known that for the last three years and we have to try and compensate for what other clubs can do in different ways with our attitude, our work ethic, our desire.
“It’s a great challenge for us to shut everyone up really. We’re going to enjoy that challenge.
“We’ve got a fantastic squad here, fantastic players throughout the team in every position.
“To strengthen it is not easy as well.”
While Tottenham did not spend a penny, Liverpool shelled out £176.75million and Chelsea paid £129m.
But Dier said: “You can look at all the other teams around us.
“They might have signed players but not many of those players that they’ve signed are better than the players they’ve already got.
“Obviously there are signings that have been made which are players of very high quality.
“But in many cases I don’t believe that they’ve signed players that are better than they already have.
“If it’s trying to give the team a boost then that’s cool.
“But we’ll find the same boost in a different way.
“We’re really happy, the players are really happy and we’ve got a fantastic group here.
“We all really enjoy training together, playing together, being with each other – and we’ll just try to continue to build on that.”
Dier admits he and his Tottenham team-mates are all desperate for glory this season, having reached the FA Cup semi-final last term.
Nine of their squad also came close to silverware in the summer when they reached the last four of the World Cup – but Hugo Lloris was the only one who went on to win it.
And Dier said: “We had a fantastic World Cup, we broke down many barriers as a national team.
“We managed to get to the semi-finals which was incredible but at the same time winning is the most important thing.
“Only Hugo can know what it feels like because he won it and only winning it matters. Nothing else matters.
“Everyone else, back here at Tottenham, we got to the FA Cup semi-final last year but we need to go that one step further and win.
“We’re all in this to win it and we all want to win.”
(The Sun)
