Darren Bent makes Cristian Romero plea to Tottenham chiefs after Man United red – ‘No sympathy’
Cristian Romero has come in for heavy criticism following his Old Trafford antics.
Tottenham were beaten 2-0 by Man United on Saturday, piling further pressure on under-fire boss Thomas Frank.
However, the trajectory of the game was drastically altered in the 29th minute, as Romero was shown a straight red card for his foul on Casemiro.
Romero will now miss Tottenham’s next four Premier League games, starting with Spurs’ clash against Newcastle United on Tuesday evening.
Darren Bent believes Tottenham ‘can do much better’ than Cristian Romero
There have been some suggestions that Romero could have his Tottenham captaincy stripped from him following his United sending off, which is his second red card of the season so far.
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Romero has been one of the first names on the Tottenham teamsheet since first joining from Atalanta in 2021, but the 27-year-old has struggled to stay in referees’ good books since his arrival in N17.
However, this season in particular has been a particularly poor one, disciplinary-wise, for the Argentine international, with eight yellow cards and two reds from just 21 Premier League games.
And, his dismissal against United does have the feel of being a watershed one in his Spurs career, as the reaction from many connected with the Lilywhites has largely been one of, that’s enough now.
Speaking live on talkSPORT on Tuesday, that certainly seems to be how Darren Bent feels about the Spurs captain, too, as he’s urged Tottenham chiefs to move on from Romero.
“That tackle there, especially after you come out and criticise the board or whoever you’re subliminally criticising, and you’re supposed to be the Spurs captain, and you go and do that?” Bent said.
“I’ve got no sympathy for him whatsoever…Stupid challenge, but as I said, you’re going to come out and criticise the board, and criticise whoever you want to criticise, you’ve got to put a level of performance in, and you haven’t.
“You’ve got yourself sent off again, and at the end of the season, I’m looking at that from a Tottenham perspective and going, ‘they can find better’.”
Romero frustration boils down to his otherwise impressive numbers
Bent is right in the respect that Tottenham could find a much more reliable centre-back than Romero, in terms of having a player you trust not to make rash decisions and pick up cards.
However, when you look at his actual numbers from this season, the frustration with the Argentine becomes abundantly clear: he’s actually a very good player.
As per Sofascore, Romero has had four team of the week inclusions, recorded a pass accuracy of 87 per cent, completed 78 per cent of his dribbles and won 71 per cent of his aerial duels respectively.
Those are superb numbers that rank among the very best Premier League central defenders this season, but if Romero can’t stop hurting his team with the number of cards he receives, Spurs may well have to move on from him.