Cristian Romero came close to being sent off early in Tottenham’s victory over Brentford on Saturday.
Spurs captain Romero was the star as he scored twice in the draw at Newcastle in midweek, but he almost went from hero to zero at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with a rash challenge after half an hour.
The home side were 1-0 up at the time when Romero flew into Igor Thiago from behind with a scissor-style tackle.
Rob Jones would show the yellow card and VAR opted not to recommend a review.
Xavi Simons was excellent as Tottenham comfortably beat Brentford 2-0 and Thomas Frank got the best of his former side.
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Keith Hackett says Romero ‘close’ to Tottenham red
Ex-FIFA referee and former head of the PGMOL Keith Hackett agrees with the match officials’ decision, just about, but feels Romero wasn’t far off being dismissed.
Tottenham were finally excellent in front of a home crowd that had waited since the opening weekend of the season to see another victory in North London.
Had Romero walked with an hour remaining it might have been a different story so the carelessness the Argentine showed when Spurs appeared to have the game well under control was an infuriating demonstration of how erratic he can be, just days after he demonstrated the other extreme of his game.
Speaking exclusively to Tottenham News Hackett said: “Romero, whilst coming in at speed, is lucky that his feet are low down and whilst close to a red it fails to reach the red card sanction.”
Xavi Simons finally arrives for Tottenham
Part of the pressure building on Frank at Tottenham has been caused by Keith Andrews doing relatively well in his place at Brentford, in his first job as a manager.
Had the Dane got another poor result in front of the home fans against his previous club the sack debate would have reached a new level, and probably rightly so.
Instead, he finally got the sort of performance from his attackers he should have been getting regularly up until now, with Simons‘ breakout performance the driving force.
A goal and an assist were just rewards for an excellent showing from the Dutchman, who has disappointed in a big way since his big-money move from RB Leipzig.
If the 22-year-old has finally turned a corner in the Premier League and can use this game as a springboard for the rest of the season then he, his manager, and his teammates, could quickly change the narrative.