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Cristian Romero
- Thread starter AdamB
- Start date
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
That confirms what I’ve said
Our defenders are woeful in the air but great with the ball
I’d even say it highlights that Arsenal may well play a set up that means Gabriel goes for the header and Saliba picks up the scraps
Also highlights why some
Think (and the stats show) Romero could be a great DM
metalgear
Luka Modric
or the more advanced center of a back three with playmaker and destroyer duties
NaijaSpurs
Les Ferdinand
Well I think the fact that he missed a game for us and came off while playing for Argentina answers that question. Or do you think he was just pretending?
Muttley
Espen Baardsen
He played 90 mins for us against Ipswich between coming off in those 2 games though. Why would he do that if he wasn't either pain free or managing pain through the game, perhaps with injections?
Not understanding the context of your word "pretending". There's no pretence, just working with the medics game by game to make decisions. He's a footballer and it comes with the territory.
Be interesting to see what tomorrow's decision is. Has Ange given us any hints yet?
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
Yeah
Anges hint is he ain’t fit
NaijaSpurs
Les Ferdinand
Well we all know he loves playing for his country and he had to come off because he aggravated the same injury. That often happen when a player plays when his body is fully ready.
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
Yep
And he is out for tomorrow now
SteveAWOL
Barry Daines
Hopefully Dragusin can hold the fort in his absence but without Romero and Bentancur our passing out from the back is going to be diminished.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Where did you get those stats? Aerial % for Romero seems ridiculously low. Are those raw stats or some kind of combination of multiple stats?
Fbref has his % of aerials won at 54% this season (not good compared to other centre backs), 69% last season (quite good compared to other centre backs).
SteveAWOL
Barry Daines
Those radars are from DataMB
C. Romero Football Stats and Visuals | DataMB
C. Romero 2024/25 data profile compared to centre-backs in Europe's Top 7 Leagues. Check out his statistics with our radar chart and plots, or compare C. Romero to other players using our data comparison tool.
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
I have him at 54% which i believe is below average
Last year we din5 have an issue with crosses, just counters and set piece play
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Cheers. I see the radar is percentiles rather than raw numbers, makes sense. Still some difference between those numbers and fbref, but that's probably just different sources for data.Those radars are from DataMB
C. Romero Football Stats and Visuals | DataMB
C. Romero 2024/25 data profile compared to centre-backs in Europe's Top 7 Leagues. Check out his statistics with our radar chart and plots, or compare C. Romero to other players using our data comparison tool.datamb.football
That's the thing though. Why is it such a big issue now? Has he gotten worse at defending them, is our overall defending worse in those situations now, is it a sample size thing and less of an issue than it currently seems? Difficult to know.
If it is a massive issue in his game, a problem with him as an individual player, wouldn't we have expected it to be more of a consistent issue across seasons?
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
I really don’t Remember us marrying this badly in previous seasons
Romero isn’t huge and was never known for being awesome on the air
But now it’s a weakness
It’s not just him too
VDV is woeful in the air. He doesn’t jump
But trying to find what’s changed, and I don’t know this for sure but it’s possible we’re getting more crosses against us now
What we do know is out full backs are being played to death and they don’t get much support from the wingers
Maybe last year we had fresher full backs stopping more crosses. Royal was decent at that as bad as he is
But back on Romero and VDV. This year they mark space and I just don’t believe that’s a tactical call.
I’ve seen cuti hand off players blind to someone self too much for my liking. You don’t see Ben Davies leave a man, you see him tell someone else to mark their man
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
It's always been a weakness to some extent at least. I agree it is this season.
I think the point about how we defend against crosses wide is a good one. Fewer games last season and we've asked a lot of both Porro and Udogie this season with limited options for the EL games.
We've also played Sarr less this season. We probably get more cover in the box from him in these situations than we do from Kulusevski/Maddison.
Bedfordspurs
Mark Falco
Sarr did a lot of recovery tackles last year IIRC
Can’t think of it once this season (not saying he hasn’t been great)
Biss isn’t an aerially strong DM
Bentacur is good attacking headers but when defending they are rarely like that
Whatever it is, it needs sorting
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
I have memories of Sarr storming back into our box to clear crosses, but no idea how often it happened. But I think he does it more than Kulusevski/Maddison.
For me the key is our "emergency defending". To me it doesn't seem like we're conceding (or conceeding a lot of chances) from a lot of crosses when we're well organised at the back.
It's usually when things are a bit chaotic. One of the centre backs being dragged wide or out of position. When we're scrambling to get back.
For me that's when we need alarm bells to be ringing for players in wide areas. They should know we're not organised and know we're in trouble. Get close, stop the cross, risk giving away a free kick if you have to. Again I think it's partly the full backs being overplayed and not as sharp as they were last season.
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
Thought the Roma game was a good example of why Romero taking time on the ball is often a good and useful thing.
Their defenders did really well to step up against our attackers (mainly Solanke, Kulusevski and Son) when we tried firing balls up to them to progress the ball. We got a lot of turnovers against us as a result of that, as well as stopped attacking possibilities ourselves.
When Romero is "standing on the ball" he's always looking for that pass to people ahead of him that actually are in a little bit of space to receive it and do something useful.
We did play quickly against Roma, but as a result it also got quite frantic and a mostly transitional game.
We really missed someone to put their foot on the ball, take a bit of time. Try to find the right pass rather than just finding a pass. And if that pass can't be found circulate possession, look for the next opportunity.
Their defenders did really well to step up against our attackers (mainly Solanke, Kulusevski and Son) when we tried firing balls up to them to progress the ball. We got a lot of turnovers against us as a result of that, as well as stopped attacking possibilities ourselves.
When Romero is "standing on the ball" he's always looking for that pass to people ahead of him that actually are in a little bit of space to receive it and do something useful.
We did play quickly against Roma, but as a result it also got quite frantic and a mostly transitional game.
We really missed someone to put their foot on the ball, take a bit of time. Try to find the right pass rather than just finding a pass. And if that pass can't be found circulate possession, look for the next opportunity.
Definitely fair Brain, and I know you're a big supporter of him. I myself like him, I think the bulk of criticism of him is more in his defensive play though. For me, Dragusin is a better defender than him and I say that having seen him a good few times before arriving at Spurs. However, completely get why Ange would prioritise Romero as his on the ball play is good but I will say I'm comfortable when Romero either leaves or gets injured as I think Dragusin is more than capable.
As a couple of side notes, I thought we broke the press well a few times which Roma were really good at. Cant believe how Roma have been poor considering how many really good players they have, and I thought it was a really good game of football.....
braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
I definitely am a big fan of him, wouldn't be surprised if that influences my thinking on him.
I think Dragusin is a better box defender for sure and obviously better in the air.
I fully agree that Dragusin is more than capable. He's a very good player for sure, though I have some concerns about his fit for the system. Also some concerns about him and VdV together on the ball. Both are good ball carriers I think, though VdV has showed more of that here. Both are a bit more on the average side with their passing game and Dragusin seems less composed and more vulnerable under real pressure.
I think in this system we need at least one quality ball playing CB. I think perhaps Davies is a better partner for Dragusin than VdV when it comes to what they do on the ball. Though obviously defensively VdV is a much better player than Davies.
Kinda remains to be seen if that's true or not as we haven't got much real game time with Dragusin and VdV together. Could be that I'm overeating the importance of Romero's passing game and how comfortable he is under pressure.
Agree that Roma are good. They have good players and seemingly now a manager who is capable of getting good things out of them.