Tottenham Hotspur were handed a 3-2 defeat by Bournemouth with Cristian Romero taking aim at the club's hierarchy, with teammates showing support
Cristian Romero issued an emotional message to Tottenham Hotspur supporters after their defeat to Bournemouth, calling out "lies" from the club's hierarchy in a now-edited post. Spurs were handed a 3-2 loss at the hands of the Cherries in their Premier League clash at the Vitality Stadium on Wednesday night.
Tottenham seemed to have rescued a point on their trip to the south coast after Joao Palhinha scored an equaliser for Thomas Frank’s side late on in the match.
However, Antoine Semenyo scored what proved to be the winner for Bournemouth in stoppage time, which handed Spurs yet another defeat.
Thomas Frank and Co. have now lost three of their last six Premier League matches, winning just one match across that run of form, which leaves the club in 14th place in the table.
Romero played the full 90 minutes for Tottenham and has now issued an apology to Spurs supporters following the loss, while also calling out the club’s hierarchy.
"Apologies to all fans of you who follow us everywhere, who are always there and will continue to be," Romero wrote in a post on Instagram to his 5.1 million followers. "We are responsible, there’s no doubt about that. I am the first.
"But we will keep facing up to it and trying to turn the situation around, for ourselves and for the club.
"At times like this, it should be other people coming out to speak, but they don't - as has been happening for several years now. They only show up when things are going well.
"We'll stay here, working, sticking together and giving our all to turn things around. Especially at times like this, keeping quiet, working harder and moving forward all together, is part of football.
"All together, it will be easier."
However, a portion of the post has been edited. It originally read: "At times like this, it should be other people coming out to speak, but they don't - as has been happening for several years now. They only show up when things are going well, to tell a few lies."
The final sentence has been edited to remove the accusation of telling lies. The post from Romero received more than 75,000 likes and some comments from his Spurs teammates.
Pedro Porro wrote on the post (in a translated comment): "Amen. Keep going, brother. We have a lot of battles left."
Richarlison, meanwhile, also left a comment on the post, which featured just a clapping hands emoji.
Frank explained after the game why he thought Tottenham played well against Bournemouth despite the defeat, but did outline where he believes Spurs need to improve.
"I think it's very tough to sit here right now and we haven't got anything out of overall a good performance," Frank said.
"I think we started well, got up 1-0, conceding two goals on second phase set pieces. Especially the second one, we needed to do much better. But I really liked the character in the team and from the players, they gave everything.
"The second half, I think we were completely on top, and keep going even through disappointments and small setbacks, which we talked about before. Work very, very hard with the players and the team on that.
"Don't score inside the post from Richie [Richarlison], overturn the penalty, keep going, getting the equaliser, 2-2.
"After that, I think we are closer to winning than Bournemouth are. With the Micky [Vane de Ven] header, with all the good opportunities. So, to sit here and concede in five, six minutes of extra time is very painful, very tough. But that's football."