England midfielder Eric Dier believes he “put a marker down” with a crunching challenge on Sergio Ramos as the Three Lions won in Seville on Monday night.

Dier was shown a yellow card for a superb 11th-minute tackle on the Spain captain inside the hosts’ penalty area – much to the chagrin of the Tottenham man.

But the incident seemed to set the tone, with England running roughshod over their opponents in the first half as a blistering Raheem Sterling brace and a goal for Marcus Rashford had Gareth Southgate’s side 3-0 up at the interval.

Spain rallied after the break, with substitute Paco Alcacer pulling a goal back before Ramos grabbed a second with the last touch of the Nations League contest as the visitors secured a famous 3-2 success.

While most of the talk was rightfully about England’s outstanding attacking prowess, Dier’s challenge earned plenty of plaudits.

Speaking on talkSPORT, former England manager Sam Allardyce said: “I loved it. A tackle like that can set the tone.

“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’.”

“I don’t really like this ‘streetwise’ thing really. It’s not really my style. Everyone is different,” he added. “It’s just a question of being smart at the right times.

“Obviously it was frustrating Spain, frustrating the crowd. We’ve experienced that in the same way. I think it’s just maturity really, knowing when to win fouls, when to take your time.

“Maybe because there weren’t any fans there (on Friday) and because we missed a few chances, I think that maybe took away from our performance against Croatia.

“But we controlled the game in a completely different way to how we played in the semi-final against them. I think that game kind of went under the radar and then we’ve come into this game and we’ve got fantastic attacking players who can counter at such pace, with such quality.”