Tottenham Hotspur were embarrassed in front of their home fans on Sunday afternoon, torn apart 3-0 by a Nottingham Forest side that has a fraction of the notoriety of the majority of the Spurs squad. After receiving a raucous reception from the crowd before the game, Spurs went out and turned in a dud of a performance for the ages, and serious questions are being asked of captain Cristian Romero.
The star center back has been fairly mediocre this season. One year removed from being the best player in the Europa League, Romero did have a quality stretch of games at the beginning of the season, but, lately, he has devolved into a liability alongside Micky van de Ven.
With the season on the line in a relegation six pointer, Romero was underwhelming, and he was culpable on the second goal Tottenham Hotspur allowed with an inexcusable error in both positioning and effort.
Cristian Romero flopped vs. Nottingham Forest
Romero has been caught napping too often of late, but beyond the struggles on the pitch, Tottenham fans are no longer convinced in Romero's leadership. Rash challenge a few weeks ago aside, he is publicly making statements that do not make any sort of sense.
As the Tottenham offiical account captures, before and after this game against Nottingham Forest, Cristian Romero kept on imploring the fans to "stay together". And in a press conference after the game, when tense questions started to be asked, he simply stormed off.
Romero does a great job of calling out the board, and Tottenham fans do love that. They took his side when he lashed out against them and were glad not to see him punished. However, it is frustrating to see Romero have all the time in the world to call out others but to have no accountability for himself and to be among those who instead try to stick to the fans witih this veiled "stick together" dialogue.
Having seen the scenes of the Spurs faithful before the game, it is impossible to ever accuse a fan base that has, quite frankly, been extorted by poor club leadership, ambivalence in the transfer window, and exorbitant ticket prices of not caring.
If anything, that accusation has to be thrown onto the players. And for 90 minutes against Nottingham Forest as the defense imploded with basic errors, Romero, like Van de Ven and a few other highly compensated players in this Tottenham squad, was the one who looked like he couldn't give a care in the world about Spurs plight. That is simply not how a captain acts.