Cristian Romero delivered a heartfelt message to Tottenham Hotspur fans following their 3-2 defeat to Bournemouth, criticising "lies" from the club's leadership in a post that has since been amended. Spurs suffered a loss during their Premier League clash at the Vitality Stadium on Wednesday evening.
It appeared as though Tottenham had salvaged a draw on the south coast after Joao Palhinha netted a late equaliser for Thomas Frank's team. But Antoine Semenyo then hit what turned out to be Bournemouth's winning goal during injury time, inflicting another setback on Spurs.
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Thomas Frank's side have now suffered defeat in three of their last six Premier League fixtures, securing victory in just one game during that period, leaving them in 14th position in the standings. Romero featured for the full 90 minutes for Tottenham and has since offered an apology to Spurs fans, while also taking aim at the club's leadership.
"Apologies to all fans of you who follow us everywhere, who are always there and will continue to be," Romero posted on Instagram to his 5.1 million followers. "We are responsible, there’s no doubt about that. I am the first.
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"But we will keep facing up to it and trying to turn the situation around, for ourselves and for the club.
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"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."
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Yet a section of the message has since then been amended. The original wording stated: "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 concluding sentence has since been altered to omit the accusaton about lies being told. Romero's statement received over 90,000 likes and drew responses from several Spurs colleagues.
Pedro Porro replied (in a translated message): "Amen. Keep going, brother. We have a lot of battles left." Meanwhile, Richarlison also weighed in on the post, simply adding a clapping hands emoji.
Following the match, Frank discussed why he felt Tottenham performed admirably against Bournemouth despite the loss, whilst also identifying areas requiring improvement.
"I think it's very tough to sit here right now and we haven't got anything out of a good performance," Frank said. "I think we started well, got up 1-0, conceding two goals on second phase set-pieces. Especially that 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 [Van 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."