Tottenham Hotspur transfer news: Cristian Romero slams 'disgraceful' injury crisis as January criticism mounts

Tottenham Hotspur centre-back criticised the lack of depth at the club in a social media post thanking fans.

The Londoners earned a point when they drew 2-2 with Manchester City on Sunday, though the Premier League result was made harder by the absences plaguing the squad.

Thomas Frank's side were without nine senior players against City, and the head coach was forced to bring centre-back Romero off at half time due to illness.

The defender has himself been frequently injured during his time at Spurs, and speaking on Instagram, he hit out at the lack of depth at the club, saying: "Great effort from all my teammates yesterday, they were incredible.

"I wanted to be available to help them even though I wasn't feeling well, especially since we only had 11 players available - unbelievable but true and disgraceful.

"We'll keep showing up and taking responsibility to turn this around, working hard and staying together."

Frank only named four senior outfield players on the bench against City, with three of those players coming on, and one of those substitutes was January signing Souza.

Have Tottenham failed in the January transfer window?

Injuries are nothing new to Tottenham given they were regularly depleted under previous boss Ange Postecoglou, who argued that his team were unable to distance themselves from the bottom half because of frequent injuries.

The only winter signing made by the club other than Souza was midfielder Conor Gallagher, who was bought from Atletico Madrid for a fee of £35m.

There is an argument that Spurs neglected the areas of need in the team given key attackers Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison are injured, while defenders Romero and Micky van de Ven have often been on the sidelines.

Spurs also facilitated the exits of winger Brennan Johnson to Crystal Palace and defender Kota Takai to Borussia Monchengladbach this month, so it is understandable that Romero would be frustrated by Tottenham's squad building.

Has Thomas Frank been judged too harshly?

There have been calls from fans and pundits for Frank to be replaced due to the fact the club are currently 14th in the Premier League with just 29 points from 24 games.

The Dane cannot escape criticism about his pragmatic approach, and it is alarming that their xG tally of 25 is only better than three other teams in the top flight this term.

Frank deserves a degree of leniency due to the injuries in his squad, but there have been few signs of progress compared to last season.