How Cristian Romero fared in his return to Tottenham lineup vs Brighton

What Romero did well

He’s a composed customer, rarely showing any signs of duress. Replacing Dier in the middle of the rearguard, Romero led by example and certainly helped calm and stabilize both Davinson Sanchez and Ben Davies.

Romero is absolutely money in possession. Spraying it around with near unerring precision, Romero, on 35 passes, completed an astounding 97 percent of them. While it’s immeasurably easier for central defenders to obtain high completion rates, Romero’s 97 percent is an incredibly impressive number no matter how you dice it.

If my simple arithmetic is spot on, Romero missed his target just once all afternoon. Outstanding. That unerringly accurate distribution will help dramatically, allowing Spurs to quickly, and effectively, turn defence into attack.

Compare his 97 percent completion rate to Sanchez’s 80 (on 45 passes) and Davies’ 91 (on 43 passes). The Argentinian also completed three of four long ball attempts, a promising sign for the wingbacks and Tottenham’s front three, who can feel confident their penetrating runs won’t result in wasted labour.

Romero also stood out for his meat-and-potato stats. You know, the ones centre backs earn their paycheques for. The 23-year-old made four tackles, five clearances and two interceptions on his return. That’s the same number of big-three contributions as Davies and Sanchez’s combined total. He also made a couple of crucial blocks, one of which on Neal Maupay in the first half.

Pretty, pretty, pretty good.