Matthijs De Ligt is enjoying the addition of Eric Dier at Bayern Munich

Ever since making his winter move to Bayern Munich from Tottenham Hotspur, Eric Dier has made a total of three appearances for the Rekordmeister, all of which have come in the Bundesliga. Additionally, two of those appearances were starts and all three of them were in Bayern wins against the likes of Union Berlin, Augsburg, and Borussia Mönchengladbach. Albeit a very small sample size of matches, it is technically true that Bayern has not lost a match that Dier has played in, though they only kept one clean sheet from that trio of matches.

Part of Bayern and Thomas Tuchel’s reason for bringing in Dier during the winter transfer window is his ability to play both as a central defender, or a midfielder. For most of his career at Tottenham, he played as a midfielder, but gradually made a switch to center back, having played for a handful of different managers during his time with Spurs. Not to mention, he most often played as a central midfielder for Gareth Southgate in the England setup, so he is used to switching between the two positions.

In his time at Bayern thus far, Dier has found himself in a situation where he has been lining up alongside Matthijs de Ligt in the center of the defensive line. As far as minutes are concerned, he is temporarily benefitting from the injury to Dayot Upamecano, though he has performed well in his three appearances thus far, and De Ligt has certainly taken notice.

“He’s a very experienced player. He is very clever with and without the ball. Things are working well together. We also talk to each other a lot,” De Ligt told Bild (via @iMiaSanMia) after Bayern’s 3-1, come-from-behind win over Borussia Mönchengladbach.

In the win over Gladbach, Dier had a defensively solid match, blocking two shots, completing a goal-saving, goal-line clearance, and he also completed a total of 88 accurate passes in the match, which was the second highest tally of the match behind De Ligt.