Tottenham Hotspur appear to have a ‘really good’ defender in Cristian Romero – but Glenn Hoddle thinks he needs to cut out the yellow cards.
Tottenham pounced over the summer to sign Romero, securing him on loan from Atalanta with a view to a £42.5million permanent deal.
Emerging as one of the top young centre backs in Italy, Romero showed huge potential at Atalanta and a move to Tottenham wasn’t a surprise.
Fabio Paratici oversaw Romero’s move to Juventus from Genoa, so signing him again made perfect sense.
Romero has largely impressed in the Premier League, returning strongly of late after a three-month injury lay-off.
The Argentinian is clearly Tottenham’s best centre back and will be the player Antonio Conte builds his back line around in the coming years.
If there is one problem with Romero though, it’s the number of yellow cards he picks up.
In 12 Premier League games – of which one was a substitute appearance – Romero has already picked up six yellow cards.
Add in a Europa Conference League red card earlier this season and Romero’s disciplinary issues could be a problem.
Romero is aggressive and doesn’t back down, so these yellow cards may just be a product of his style of play.
Tottenham legend Glenn Hoddle was now spoken about Romero, telling BT Sport (26/02, 12:36pm) that he thinks this yellow card problems ‘follows him’.
Hoddle did praise Romero as a ‘really good player’ and a ‘good defender’, but thinks Romero needs to cut out these problems or risk red cards down the line.
“That is a point and I think it was the same in Italy,” said Hoddle. “It’s something that follows him, there’s too many yellows. Obviously, if you’ve got a yellow early in a game, it’s difficult then to go the rest of the game always having that threat over your head that it’s going to turn into a red.”
“But he looks a really good player, a good defender,” he added.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
