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‘I’m confused’: Micah Richards says two Spurs stars ‘were good players’ but they’ve been awful under Conte
BBC pundit Micah Richards has claimed that Cristian Romero and Davinson Sanchez have really underperformed under Antonio Conte at Tottenham Hotspur.
Spurs succumbed to their third consecutive league defeat against Wolves on Sunday. Their top-four hopes are hanging by a thread now and they can only make it there if their London rivals Arsenal and West Ham mess up.
Conte has been brought in to bring glory back to Tottenham but it looks like he has found out that the job at hand is a lot more difficult than he thought it was before joining the club.
Richards believes that senior players aren’t stepping up for Tottenham, especially Sanchez and Romero, who he says were ‘good players’ before Conte joined the club.
Micah Richards: Sanchez and Romero were good players before Conte arrived at Tottenham
The Englishman said on : “Awful! Absolutely awful. The senior players are not playing, Sanchez and Romero, I’m confused. These are good players or were good players (before Conte’s arrival). I don’t understand (what has happened).
You can’t say (they are) top players because the Premier League is a difficult league. But, they are good players but they are playing (really badly).
“He (Sanchez) is struggling for confidence, he looks like he doesn’t know what he’s doing there. The system – they are playing three at the back – I don’t know if he’s good enough or wants to play in that position.”
TBR View:
Richards is right, Tottenham’s defence has looked awful, especially in the first 20 minutes of the game against Wolves.
Davinson Sanchez looked like he improved under Conte but he has been really poor in recent weeks. Romero will develop into a top player and he was brilliant when he played under Nuno Espirito Santo, but he hasn’t been great since his return from injury either.
Conte needs to find a way to get the better of his defenders and there isn’t a lot of time. A couple more defeats and Spurs’ top-four dreams will surely be crushed, and that will not be ideal at all ahead of the all-important summer transfer window.
