This is an article that will give you ratings for Tottenham Hotspur players after their 2-2 away draw against Manchester United at Old Trafford. It was, in all fairness, a pretty good point even if Tottenham probably should’ve won.
But first — Eric Dier has left the club and has now joined Harry Kane at Bayern Munich. This makes me a little sad. Dier had been at Tottenham Hotspur for nearly a decade and had been one of the longest tenured Spurs players at the club after Hugo Lloris. He was an integral part of the fabric of the club and one of the most recognizable faces on Spurs’ side for much of the last ten years.
He also played hell with my phone and computer’s autocorrect. “Dier” is an unusual name, one that, until I trained the autocorrect system, would immediately change to all sorts of things if I wasn’t careful when writing articles or chatting with my friends. Some of those autocorrects ended up in various articles and tweets before getting called out and corrected. I can’t think of a better legacy for Eric Dier than to dedicate a player ratings article in his honor that expresses my frustration at how many times I had to go back and make sure I didn’t misspell his surname because a computer thought it was smarter than me.
Here are your Tottenham Hotspur player ratings for the 2-2 draw at Manchester City to the theme of autocorrections for Eric Dier. And yes, they’ve all shown up at one time or another and sometimes they felt prescient.
5 stars: Eric Diet
No Tottenham Hotspur players were quite at the Eric Diet level. (You might say that nobody was feasting)
4 stars: Eric Dire
Cuti Romero (Community — 4.0): Welcome back, buddy. Looked a little rusty for United’s opening goal but grew into the match and thumped a header off the crossbar late.
Rodrigo Bentancur (Community — 4.5): Easily the best of Tottenham’s three central midfielders on the day. Took his goal very well and finally looked fully up to speed and fitness, which was great to see.
Richarlison (Community — 4.0): Honestly, I think he’s my MOTM. Outstanding in the press, dangerous with the ball even when he got very little service, and scored a great headed goal. Six goals from seven… when do we start calling him an elite striker?
Ange Postecoglou (Community — 4.0): Getting a draw at Old Trafford, even against this trash-ass United team, is tough, and especially considering the key players he had out on Sunday. Spurs played their football and it worked. Just wish he hadn’t implied afterwards that his injured players were putting playing football ahead of their own well-being and recovery.
3.5 stars: Eric Deer
Guglielmo Vicario (Community — 3.5): Let in two goals but both were pretty unstoppable. Didn’t have a ton to do otherwise if we’re being honest.
Micky van de Ven (Community — 3.5): I missed him, but he was shaking off the rust for much of this match and was beaten defensively a couple of times. Very solid otherwise. His pace makes such a difference to the way Spurs play. Subbed off with a cramp, he looked exhausted (and it’s no wonder).
Destiny Udogie (Community — 4.0): A lot of the good stuff Spurs were doing going forward were due to Udogie’s workrate and pace, and he basically kept Garnacho in his pocket the entire match. That said, he also put a header off his own post and lost McTominay for a late header. He was apparently one of the ones suffering from illness this week, and on balance the good outweighed the bad.
Oliver Skipp (Community — 3.5): Quite honestly, probably Skippy’s best match for us all season. An excellent long ball to loose Timo (which he squandered) and had a hockey assist as well, even though he was in there more to press from the front than to be creative. Look — he couldn’t, and can’t, provide the creativity lacking with Maddison and Deki out and considering United basically ignored him in midfield you could argue he didn’t really take advantage of the freedom that offered, but he pressed quite well. But that’s not why he was there. He was fine. Good, even! I was quite happy with him! I could probably write a whole article on Skipp this match (I won’t).
Pedro Porro (Community — 4.0): Looked fantastic going forward but this was one of the matches where he lacked efficacy defensively. Fell asleep for United’s first goal, got smoked by Rashford a couple of times. His set piece delivery was outstanding, though — especially the corner to Richy’s head.
3 stars: Eric Dirt
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (Community — 3.0): Ran around a lot in an industrious workman-like midfield doing industrious workman-like things. Had a shot that went close as well. I wanted him to be more passy and creative, but y’know. You work with what you’ve got. Overall — pretty good match.
Timo Werner (Community — 3.5): As far as debuts go, this was a pretty good one considering he’s played 17 minutes this season. His shot is, um okay we know the history there, but his first touch was at times very good, he looked a threat wide, and picked up a debut assist. He’s basically what I think we all hoped Brennan Johnson would be. Give him time to get used to his teammates and he can cook.
2.5 stars: Eric Fiber
Bryan Gil (Community — 3.0): “So what is it that you’d say you DO here?”
2 stars: Eric Died
Brennan Johnson (Community — 2.5): The community is already arguing about Brennan’s performance and tying it into his overall career trajectory at Spurs. I think he’s a young player with one good offensive move and bags of potential who probably shouldn’t be getting as many minutes as he is right now and who had a bad match on Sunday. In a perfect world he’s an impact sub at the moment. This is not a perfect world.
1 star: Eric Dirge
No Tottenham players were as bad as Eric Dirge.
Eric Duet Memorial Non-Rating
Radu Dragusin, Emerson Royal