Glenn Hoddle has praised Cristian Romero and spotted that he was playing in a slightly different role for Tottenham Hotspur against Eintracht Frankfurt.
Tottenham headed to Germany on Tuesday night as they took on Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League.
Tottenham’s last game was a 3-1 defeat to rivals Arsenal and their last Champions League outing was a 2-0 defeat to Sporting, so fans wanted a big performance here.
Spurs were improved on Saturday’s defeat but just so wasteful going forward, leading to a 0-0 draw that probably won’t delight many at Tottenham.
Glenn Hoddle has praised Cristian Romero
Antonio Conte’s men pushed for the win but it just wasn’t their night as promising openings came to nothing.
Emerson Royal was found very high up the pitch in the first half and Glenn Hoddle spotted something ‘a little bit different’ from Tottenham.
When Tottenham were building down the right side, Emerson pushed high up the pitch and Cristian Romero would end up pushing high and wide as something of a full back or additional wing back.
That then meant a midfielder – either Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg or Rodrigo Bentancur – would drop in as a centre back to cover for Romero’s more adventurous runs.
This is something Tottenham did attempt against Arsenal too and Hoddle, speaking on BT Sport (04/10, 8:13pm) suggested that it was interesting to see Conte trying something new.
Hoddle also praised Romero’s ‘brilliant’ defending, hailing him for being so aggressive when called upon at the back.
“Romero, brilliant in his defending, so aggressive, getting tight and wins the ball back for Tottenham,” said Hoddle.
“It’s interesting as well that one of the midfield players drops into that right-sided centre back area and Romero comes right out here as a sort of double wing back in many ways, that’s a little bit different to what they’ve been doing in the last few weeks,” he added.
We’ve seen many teams pushing their centre backs high and wide to try and create overloads and Tottenham are now doing similar.
It didn’t lead to a goal on Tuesday night but Emerson took up some dangerous positions to try and unlock the Frankfurt door.
Conte may well continue this idea moving forward, especially with Tottenham needing an attacking spark in their last two outings.
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