BARCELONA STAR SERGIO Busquets is “no better” than Tottenham’s Eric Dier, claims Sam Allardyce, with the Spurs midfielder starring in England’s 3-2 victory over Spain.
Gareth Southgate’s team were expected to face another tough evening trying to contain the World Cup-winning playmaker when they headed to Seville on Monday.
Busquets was, however, to have little impact on proceedings, with a flying start by the Three Lions allowing them to open up a three-goal advantage by half-time .
Dier was among those to set the tone as he flew into challenges and worked hard to break up Spain’s passing game, with Allardyce suggesting that he looked very much at home in illustrious company.
The former England boss told talkSPORT : “The praise about Busquets must be stopped. It was never evident last night. He looked out of sorts.
“He’s no better or worse then Eric Dier, for me.
“Busquets is a sitting midfield player who breaks up play, intercepts, passes it very quickly and is intelligent. That’s what he is.
“He’s not much more than that, but he gets a lot of praise for it, whereas Eric Dier does a similar job, but sometimes gets loads of criticism for it.
“He [Dier] has got the capability of being that.
“Busquets has been a great player for Spain and Barcelona, don’t get me wrong. He’s a very effective player and is the first pick for every manager because he plays such a simple game.
“But we laud him as a genius, whereas our own, we don’t. We criticise. Eric Dier was far better than Busquets last night.”
Dier certainly left nothing on the field as he dug deep for the good of the England cause, with there just 12 minutes on the clock when he crashed into a crunching challenge on Spain skipper Sergio Ramos.
He was booked for a full-blooded tackle which saw him take both ball and man, but Allardyce feels it was important for somebody to lay down an early marker and get Southgate’s side going.
He added: “I loved it! A tackle like that can set the tone.
“As a manager, you look at who is going to get the fans on the edge of the seats. People will say that you can’t think of something like that to do it, but when you watch a game of football and you see that level of commitment, you saw the cheer it brings from the fans.
“It says, ‘We’re going to get stuck in tonight, we’re going to make an impression on Spain in all aspects of the game to win it.’
“That got a big cheer from the fans in the stadium and probably all the fans in England and certainly set the tone for the match.”
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