In the summer of 2021, there was plenty of buzz around Emerson Royal’s arrival at Tottenham Hotspur from Barcelona.
However, the Brazilian right-back flattered to deceive during his debut campaign in North London, as he simply struggled to impress from both an attacking and a defensive point of view.
While several Spurs supporters were happy to put down Royal’s struggles to acclimatising to Premier League football, things have seemingly gone from bad to worse in his sophomore season at the club.
So much so that fans of all clubs fail to understand why Antonio Conte persists with the former Atletico Mineiro man, especially after the highly-rated Djed Spence’s addition for £20 million in the summer.
Chris Sutton has now joined one of the several critics of Emerson Royal, as he discussed how he fails to understand what the misfiring right-back offers to this Tottenham side.
“Emerson Royal is a weak link for Tottenham. He’s got too many mistakes and daft decisions in him, like the needless no-look pass that went out of play against Sporting Lisbon.”, he told the Daily Mail.
Sutton continued, “He’s not good enough defensively and he doesn’t offer much in an attacking sense. Supporters are already asking what incriminating evidence he has on Conte to repeatedly make his starting line-up. Marseille would be glad to see Royal in the Tottenham team when they have better wing-backs in Ivan Perisic and Ryan Sessegnon.
Spurs were so much better in their comeback at Bournemouth once Perisic and Sessegnon were on the pitch together.”
In Tottenham’s brilliant 3-2 comeback against the Cherries, it was Emerson Royal’s errors for both of Kieffer Moore’s strikes that forced his side to dig deep for a much-needed 3 points.
It is telling that a majority of Lilywhites supports would perhaps agree with Chris Sutton’s assessment of the 23-year old.
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