Arsenal
Aston Villa
Chelsea
Crystal Palace
Everton
Fulham
Leeds United
Liverpool
Manchester City
Manchester United
Newcastle United
Nottingham Forest
Southampton
Tottenham Hotspur
West Ham United
Wolverhampton Wanderers
News
Troy Deeney says £42m Tottenham player isn’t good enough as a leader
Tottenham Hotspur haven’t had an ideal start to this Premier League season.
The north London club are in mid-table as we head into the second international break, and Ange Postecoglou is coming under pressure.
It’s hard to pinpoint what the big problem is at Spurs right now, but one suggestion is that they lack leadership.
Heung-Min Son is Tottenham’s captain, and, by all accounts, Son is a great character in the Spurs dressing room, but he’s not exactly a tub-thumping captain in the same way someone like Jordan Henderson once was for Liverpool.
Speaking on the Up Front Podcast, Troy Deeney has been discussing the leadership situation at Tottenham, and he’s noted that he thinks Cristian Romero isn’t a good leader in this side.
Troy Deeney says Tottenham’s Cristian Romero isn’t a good leader
Deeney spoke about the man alongside Simon Jordan.
The pundit claimed that Romero is too erratic to be an effective leader in this Tottenham team, while he also stated that he’d have loved to have played against the Argentine.
Romero may be a World Cup winner, but Deeney wasn’t willing to give him much credit.
“Who do you think the leaders are at Tottenham when you look on that pitch? Deeney said.
“Romero?” Simon Jordan said.
“I wouldn’t call Romero a leader in my opinion, he’s too erratic, he’s a bit like Martinez at United, good in the tackle, but he’ll get sent off a couple of times this year,” Deeney said.
“You would’ve liked to have played against him wouldn’t you?” Deeney was asked.
“Absolutely,” Deeney said.
What Ange Postecoglou has said about Romero’s leadership
It’s interesting that Deeney says that Romero isn’t a good leader, because Postecoglou tells an entirely different story.
Indeed, Postecoglou says that Romero has really stepped up as a leader recently.
“You just feel it around the place. He knows that Sonny’s not here and he knows what Sonny does on a daily basis. Sonny gets around everyone in the building and says, ‘how you going?’ and Cristian’s doing that now,” Postecoglou said.
“I can see that. In training he’s a lot more vocal than he was in the past. That’s the beauty of it.
“There is a void because you’re missing one of your leaders, but for me, on the outside [of the dressing room], you’re kind of waiting on, ‘is anyone going to step up here? Because we’re going to need someone to, or do I need to interject myself into it’, but he’s stepped up.”
Of course, being a leader behind the scenes and being a leader on the pitch are two entirely different things.
Romero is an erratic player, and that isn’t a good example to set for your teammates, especially if you’re meant to be playing in the heart of this defence.
Spurs’ priority in the January transfer window may be to sign some more leaders.