Tottenham Hotspur assistant manager Cristian Stellini has admitted that Cristian Romero’s game needs some work.
Romero is suspended for Saturday’s Premier League meeting with Leicester City after his sending-off last time out.
But first, the good stuff. Against Manchester City, like the team, he produced one of his best performances of the season.
Romero spent much of his afternoon keeping an eye on Erling Haaland, who failed to register an attempt at goal. The last time Haaland started a match and didn’t have a shot was in September 2020 for Borussia Dortmund against MSV Duisburg.
Romero generally took to his task of shackling Haaland the only way he knows how: in an aggressive fashion, on the front foot. And Haaland didn’t even need to be in a particularly advanced position for Romero to quickly close him down.
Romero had picked up four yellow cards in his last five league appearances prior to the Citizens clash.
And in his first season at Tottenham, the 24-year-old was shown 11 yellow cards.
Speaking to football.london, Stellini explained how he could improve Romero’s discipline whilst retaining his aggressiveness.
“To not receive a yellow card you have to arrive at the ball and use your tackle at the right time,” he replied.
“So we can work on the timing. He has to jump and tackle and try to win the ball.
“We will work on this aspect but keeping the same aggressiveness.”
Romero isn’t a stranger to a yellow card, picking up 65 in his 175-match career. That works out as just more than a booking every three games, which would equal 14 bookings in a regular Premier League season (the worst yellow card offenders in a season tend to sit between 11 and 14).
I’ve always had that spirit and desire and aggression… and I think if I ever lost that, I’d have a problem,” Romero told The Athletic last year
His fearless aggression — combined with reading danger and playing on the front foot — is what makes Romero such a good defender. This recent hyper-aggression can be a rabble-rousing tackle, but it is also not all that necessary and feels out of control.
His aggressiveness doesn’t take anything away from Romero’s game. He’s a world cup winner, he’s fun and in fact Tottenham’s best defender. He just needs to work out when to rein it in.
