Cristian Romero has once again appeared to aim a subtle jab at Tottenham Hotspur, this time directing his frustration at what he described as the club\u2019s \u201cdisgraceful\u201d lack of squad depth.<\/p>\n
The World Cup-winning defender voiced his concerns on Instagram a day after starting Spurs\u2019 2-2 draw with Manchester City. Romero played the first half before being withdrawn at the interval due to illness.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreat effort from all my teammates yesterday \u2014 they were incredible,\u201d wrote the Tottenham captain. \u201cI wanted to be out there to help even though I wasn\u2019t feeling well, especially because we only had 11 players available. Unbelievable, but true \u2014 and disgraceful.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll keep turning up, taking responsibility, working hard and staying united to change things around. And all that\u2019s left is to thank the fans for always being there and supporting us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Against City, head coach Thomas Frank was able to name just four senior outfield players among his substitutes. Mathys Tel, Wilson Odobert and Pape Matar Sarr were introduced from the bench, alongside 17-year-old defender Jun\u2019ai Byfield. Sarr replaced Romero at half-time, with Frank later confirming the Argentine had been taken off due to illness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re monitoring him and assessing the situation,\u201d Frank said after the match. \u201cHopefully he\u2019s okay. He also struggled during the Frankfurt game but still delivered a fantastic captain\u2019s performance. He wasn\u2019t quite right today, but we\u2019re hoping it\u2019s nothing serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Romero\u2019s withdrawal, Frank moved Sarr into midfield, with defensive midfielder Jo\u00e3o Palhinha dropping into central defence alongside Radu Dr\u0103gu\u0219in. The Romanian made his first start in more than a year following recovery from a serious knee injury.<\/p>\n
Romero\u2019s latest post is not the first time he has publicly criticised Tottenham\u2019s leadership. After a 3-2 defeat to Bournemouth in January, he questioned why senior figures at the club failed to speak out during difficult moments, leaving the players to face the scrutiny.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt times like this, others should be coming out to talk, but they don\u2019t \u2014 and this has been happening for years,\u201d Romero wrote at the time. \u201cThey only appear when things are going well.\u201d<\/p>\n
He later deleted the final line \u2014 \u201cto tell a few lies\u201d \u2014 though the rest of the post remains visible on his Instagram account. The centre-back has previously voiced similar frustrations, notably in 2021, when he criticised Tottenham\u2019s spending levels compared to their Premier League rivals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cristian Romero has once again appeared to aim a subtle jab at Tottenham Hotspur, this time directing his frustration at what he described as the club\u2019s \u201cdisgraceful\u201d lack of squad depth. The World Cup-winning defender voiced his concerns on Instagram a day after starting Spurs\u2019 2-2 draw with Manchester City. Romero played the first half …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":58392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/IMG_1902.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58391"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58393,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58391\/revisions\/58393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}