Cristian Romero is right: Tottenham’s transfer window really was ‘disgraceful’
The Spurs captain seems less than happy about the way his club handled the January transfer window - and he’s right to be angry.
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When the January transfer window opened, Tottenham Hotspur were expected to be among the busiest teams in the Premier League. They had a laundry list of needs, a host of injuries to work through, and plenty of PSR headroom to play with. In the end, North London’s fax machines fell silent long before deadline day.
Conor Gallagher was signed and Brennan Johnson sold, both for around £35m. Young wing-back Souza was added to the list of depth options at a cost of around £13m, and may well prove to be a fine addition somewhere down the line. But that was it. Thomas Frank’s squad was not rebuilt or even substantially renovated – and Cristian Romero clearly felt rather strongly about it.
The Spurs centre-back posted on Instagram that it was “disgraceful” that the club went into the game against Manchester City on Sunday with “only 11 players” – and while that may be a slight exaggeration, Romero may well also have a point.
What Cristian Romero said about Spurs’ transfer business – and why he may be right
Romero’s full post praised the efforts of his team-mates after they came back from 2-0 down to draw at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but also appeared to call out the club’s transfer business as the end of the January window loomed.
“Great effort from all my teammates yesterday, they were all incredible,” Romero posted. “I wanted to be available to help them even though I wasn’t feeling well, especially as we had only 11 players available – unbelievable but true and disgraceful.”
In reality, Spurs had 15 first-team players available for the match, including Romero himself – who was perhaps not counting himself due to his recent illness - but excluding 19-year-old Souza, whose status in a full-strength squad is uncertain. But while the specifics of Romero’s post may have included some mild exaggeration, the thrust of his argument rings true.
Spurs had the financial position and time to make some signings and to freshen up the squad in several areas, with the midfield ultimately the only problem position which was addressed – and while Gallagher has a proven track record in the Premier League, it’s fair to wonder whether he presence alone will be sufficient to turn things around.
Some changes would probably have been needed even if injuries hadn’t become a serious problem, but they have – Spurs currently have at least a dozen players who are either out or doubts for next weekend’s game against Manchester United, many of them critical first-teamers and most of them out for weeks or months on end. In that context, refusing to add to the squad seems unconscionable.
Thomas Frank may not be especially happy to see Romero speaking his mind once more – he has already gently criticised the Argentine for airing his frustrations in public after the 3-2 defeat to Bournemouth in January – but whether or not Spurs’ captain should be keeping his thoughts to himself or not, that doesn’t change the fact that he is justified in feeling frustrated.
Spurs have a squad that is being stretched to breaking point by injuries, and which is struggling for form and in need of fresh ideas. Most pundits expected the club to be champing at the bit to make some moves in the transfer window. That they didn’t suggests a hierarchy that have failed to commit to a path when it was becoming a necessity.
Why Spurs didn’t make moves in the window – and why it was probably a mistake
While many clubs avoid spending money in the January transfer window either because the value of deals is inflated or because their primary targets are less easily obtained in the middle of a potential selling club’s season, Spurs had both a desperate need for reinforcements and an enviable financial platform to work with.
The decision makers at boardroom level could, perhaps, justify their inaction as refusing to overspend on panic purchases, but between their form and extraordinary injury list, there was just cause for at least a little bit of panic. The Lewis family also injected £100m into the club in October, only for their winter net spend to fall at £13m.
The impending departure of sporting director Fabio Paratici may also have been disruptive, but he was only ever leaving the club after the window closed and the scouting work should already have been done. This is a club that had the means and motive to make a splash.
Their failure to do so can’t be ascribed to satisfaction with the squad – there are plenty of players who are struggling to pull their weight when they aren’t on the treatment table – and so can perhaps only be logically justified by a lack of certainty over the future of the current manager.
There’s a certain degree of sense in suggesting that it would be a bad move to spend significant sums on players who might align with Frank’s methods and needs but who could easily prove to be bad fits for the next man in should the club sack their head coach, which remains a realistic prospect – but if that is indeed the way that Spurs have approached the window, then they have willingly put themselves between a rock and a hard place through sheer indecision.
With inaction in the transfer market so evidently the wrong decision, the club had to make their choice – either to back Frank to turn things around after a distinctly rocky start to life in North London, and to sign the players he needed, or to fire him and build the squad to another coach’s specification.
Instead, they have chosen the worst of both worlds, and asked a struggling coach to limp on with a squad which is hamstring - quite literally, in some cases – by injuries. Even if Frank is capable of righting the ship, he will need a minor miracle to do so with a squad which doesn’t have enough healthy players to fill out the bench. And if he is the wrong man for the job, then why is he still there?
So it is that Spurs head into the second half of the season with few realistic ambitions. A club that had to act decisively in order to achieve anything in the short term chose instead to sleepwalk their way through the rest of the campaign.
Perhaps it won’t prove too disastrous. Even with their injuries and recent form, Spurs probably aren’t in serious danger of relegation. Perhaps the money saved will be invested more shrewdly next summer. But right now, as a hobbled squad looks ahead to a few months which promise to be rather bleak, it’s hard to disagree with Romero – the way the transfer window has been handled does indeed look rather “disgraceful.”
