Tottenham vs Brighton at the Tottenham Hotspurs Stadium - Saturday, 5.30pm
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Tottenham’s relegation battle suffered a further blow with an injury to captain Cristian Romero.
Roberto De Zerbi’s team suffered a painful 1-0 loss at Sunderland yesterday and dropped in the bottom three with just six matches to play.
The new Spurs boss will hope to have Romero available for this Saturday’s crunch clash against his former club Brighton, the Italian’s first match in charge at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
It was a worrying moment concerning Romero, who was involved in a collision with his own goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky, while defending the ball from Sunderland striker Brian Brobbey.
The tearful Tottenham captain was substituted off, while Kinsky had a bandage wrapped around his head and was able to continue.
Speaking after the match, De Zerbi was uncertain about the extent of Romero’s injury.
“We don’t know yet, we have to see in the next game, in the next days,” he said.
“I hope for us it’s not too important a problem because he’s a crucial player for us.
“He’s a good guy, good player, top player, big personality and we need him to finish this season and to achieve our goal.”
A difficult moment for De Zerbi
De Zerbi admitted Tottenham are in a “difficult moment” after the loss at Sunderland.
The Italian’s first game as Spurs boss ended in a 1-0 defeat, meaning the club finished the weekend inside the Premier League’s relegation zone.
In an open first half, Tottenham had a penalty decision overturned by VAR and had opportunities through Richarlison and Dominic Solanke.
However, Sunderland broke the deadlock in the 61st minute when Nordi Mukiele’s strike deflected off Micky van de Ven and dipped into the net, leaving Kinsky no chance.
Pedro Porro was denied twice by Robin Roefs in additional time, but the north London side ultimately slipped to a 16th league defeat of the season.
“I think we played a good game, especially in the first half, with the ball and without the ball,” said the ex-Brighton boss.
“We had three clear chances to score, one with Solanke, one with Richarlison, another with (Lucas) Bergvall.
“We played well, but we don’t play well enough to win the game because in the end, in the second half, we suffered too much. To Sunderland, we lost 20/30 metres on the pitch.
“We had another important chance with Richarlison just two minutes before conceding the goal. We can play better, we can do something more, as energy, as passion on the pitch, with more enthusiasm, yes.
“But now we are inside of a difficult moment. I would like to help the players to show what they can do on the pitch because we played a good game, but we can play much better than today.
“My job is not now to change the style of play, I did two or three things with the ball, two or three things without the ball.
“The crucial part is not with the ball or without the ball. It’s in our mentality to be positive, but to be positive just because we have the quality enough to win a game.
“When we go to win a game we can change other things.”