Latest Tottenham signing needs more time, patience required

Tottenham signed Emerson Royal for over £25 million from Barcelona last summer, and the pressure is squarely on the right back to meet expectations at his new club. 

It takes time for any player to adapt to a new club in a different country. Some more than others. Royal has shown glimpses of living up to the price of his transfer fee, but has fallen way short of expectations in an area wingbacks are primarily judged: their ability to deliver the final product.

His crossing stats read like a bad horror movie. Royal has completed a paltry 22 percent of his 50 crosses. That means he’s found a colleague just 11 times with crosses so far this season, less than one per match on average.

Compounding his wildly inaccurate crosses, Royal has a single through ball to his name. While playing in more advanced wingback position admittedly lessens the opportunities to play a through ball, connecting with one in 15 appearances isn’t nearly good enough.

Trent Alexander-Arnold, the crosser of all crossers, has 157 this season and leads the division.

That’s over 100 more than Royal, who plays in an almost identical position. We can’t compare the two like for like, as that would be an outlandish injustice to both players. But it goes to show the disparity between the world’s best crosser and Royal, whose tragic crossing numbers send the wrong sort of shivers up one’s spine.

We all have to remember, though, that Royal is is only 22 years old. Please don’t look up how old Alexander-Arnold is, as it might make you involuntarily gag. I’ll save you the three seconds it will take you to look it up. He is 23.

So the age defence might not stand up in the court of law.

However, Royal is still an infant in terms of Premier League experience, and that’s the defence I’ll lean toward. Most foreign players struggle to come to terms with the infinitely higher rigours and demands of England’s top division, and Royal is no different.

Thankfully, Royal isn’t as poor at other things as he is at crossing. If he was, he’d probably find it difficult earning a starting spot on a Sunday league team.

He has great pace, impressive athletic prowess and is pretty solid defensively. He’s still Tottenham’s irrefutable first-choice right back, which says a lot about Matt Doherty‘s hardships.

So let’s err on the side of patience where Royal is concerned. He needs more time to fine tune his craft and adapt to life in the Premier League. How much time is the £25 million question.

Because if he doesn’t improve his crossing ability soon, Royal will be another right back in the long line of Tottenham right backs who failed to live up to the lofty expectations his transfer fee came with.