The arrival of Pedro Porro appears to have brought the best out of Emerson Royal who has produced two strong performances in big Tottenham games since they paid £45million for another right back on transfer deadline day.
‘A healthy dispute,’ says Royal. ‘As we say in football, a good fight. I want to play. He’s going to want to play too. The important thing is that we have players who are going to have this fight and the club does need that kind of players. We have some big competitions and we’re going to need everybody.’
Less than a week after Porro’s arrival from Sporting Lisbon, with Matt Doherty freed to join Atletico Madrid and Djed Spence loaned to Rennes to make way, and Royal seized his moment, performing brilliantly in a win against Manchester City. ‘Maybe my best game in a Tottenham shirt,’ the 24-year-old Brazilian told Sportsmail.
‘A game when I was able to keep my concentration and win most of my duels with Jack Grealish.’
On Tuesday, he produced another solid effort in Milan. In between, it did not harm his case when Porro started at Leicester, a day when Spurs crashed to a 4-1 defeat. The new signing may require time to adjust to the strict tactical demands of Antonio Conte, and this will take longer than usual with the boss forced to step away from the club once again after a setback in his recovery from an operation to remove his gallbladder.
‘I believe Conte never lost confidence in me,’ said Royal. ‘We have been talking a lot since the beginning of the season. I made a mistake in a game, against Sporting if I’m not mistaken, and he talked to me. He told me to keep doing my job and that he trusted me.
‘We have a very good relationship. He wants to help all the players. He’s here to teach and I’m here to learn. I try to extract as much as I can from his knowledge and he charges me a lot as his athlete.’
Tottenham has been plagued by inconsistencies but they are still firmly in the race for the top four, two points behind Newcastle in fourth, and plotting a sprint finish akin to last season, when they squeezed back into the Champions League ahead of Arsenal.
‘We’ve talked about it a lot internally,’ said Royal. ‘We are a team with great potential and we can compete and fight for big things but with inconsistencies this is practically impossible. We know we have to stay alive in all competitions and fight for everything.’
