Cristian Romero has been spoken to by Thomas Frank and one of Tottenham’s sporting directors after an apparent swipe at board for staying silent amid the team’s struggles. The captain posted a strongly worded message after Wednesday’s defeat at Bournemouth that initially appeared to accuse the hierarchy of telling “lies” before being edited to remove that incendiary reference.
What remained on Romero’s Instagram post, though, was an apparent call for the Spurs directors to speak up. The players and Frank were again subjected to abuse by some of their fans after a latest loss that leaves Tottenham with five points from their past six matches, two of which have ended in defeat.
“At times like this, it should be other people coming out to speak, but they don’t – as has been happening for several years now,” Romero’s post said. “They only show up when things are going well.” In the initial post the second sentence read: “They only show up when things are going well, to tell a few lies.”
Since Daniel Levy, who rarely spoke publicly, was forced out of his role at Spurs chair in early September, a new leadership team have been running the club. Peter Charrington, who was brought on to the board in March, stepped into a newly created role of nonexecutive chair. Vinai Venkatesham has been the chief executive since June. The club are run by the Lewis family through a family trust. They are relations of the British businessman Joe Lewis, the former Spurs owner.
Frank said he and Johan Lange had talked to Romero on Thursday. “A lot of the things he’s done well on and off the pitch, I’m happy with,” the head coach said. “But also when you’re a young leader sometimes you make a mistake. Of course it’s good to keep it internally. Johan and I had a good conversation with him this morning about everything, which we of course keep internally.”
Post-game footage from Bournemouth showed Micky van de Ven and Pedro Porro arguing with supporters. Romero also posted: “Apologies to all fans of you who follow us everywhere, who are always there and will continue to be. We are responsible, there’s no doubt about that. I am the first. But we will keep facing up to it and trying to turn the situation around, for ourselves and for the club.”
His message concluded: “Especially at times like this, keeping quiet, working harder and moving forward all together, is part of football. All together, it will be easier.”
The Spurs striker Richarlison responded to Romero’s message with a hand-clapping emoji and Porro posted a response that began: “Amen.”
Frank, under growing pressure with Spurs 14th in the Premier League, said Mohammed Kudus was not expected to return from injury until April. The Dane was pictured at Bournemouth holding an Arsenal-branded coffee cup after Spurs’ arch-rivals played at the stadium last weekend. “I definitely did not notice it,” he said. “It’s fair to say not winning every single football match, it would be absolutely stupid of me to [intentionally] take an Arsenal cup.” Guardian sport
