Tottenham Hotspur captain and superstar center back Cristian Romero is the best player on the team and the most accomplished footballer in the squad, given his Copa America and World Cup title victories, as well as his status as the Europa League Player of the Tournament last season when Spurs won the prestigious European trophy for the first time in more than 40 years.
Best yet, Romero, who could have left the club in the dust this summer, is always willing to say the tough words that need to be said and wear his heart on his sleeve. And in a season filled with cowardice and figureheads at the club spending more time clashing with the supporters than with their opponents on the pitch, it was very nice to see Romero publicly call the club's horrid leadership out again on Wednesday night after the loss to Bournemouth.
Romero's words were directed at upper management, but given the poor performance of new manager Thomas Frank - and we all know how much Romero and the others loved playing for Ange Postecoglou - you could not help but read the timing of the dig as being partially and very subtly directed at Frank for being the complacent and incompetent manager appointed and galvanized by an even more complacent and incompetent board.
Cristian Romero was in the right
Well, it looks like Frank got the memo that Romero may have been speaking about him, and instead of taking the high road, the Danish coach, as he always does, decided to take a little dig at the captain in a passive aggressive way.
Frank told reporters after the 3-2 Tottenham Hotspur loss to Bournemouth, via The Spurs Watch, "When you're a young leader sometimes you make a mistake, of course it's good to keep it internally."
Why should Cristian Romero keep things internally? Frank has had no problems criticizing Xavi Simons, Mathys Tel, Wilson Odobert, Mohammed Kudus, and others all season long for his own mistakes, and he even threw young Archie Gray under the bus once for a mistake that was not even his, playing favorites with goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario.
Frank plays favorites and is not held accountable for his issues, and when Romero finally had enough and said what everyone who truly loves Tottenham Hotspur is thinking deep down, Frank basically pooh poohs Romero about keep things internal. But look, everything has been kept so internal at Tottenham these months that the club feels like a pressure cooker that is about to explode. Maybe Frank should have taken his own advice and kept things internal, because by opening his mouth, he proves Romero's point that there are a lot of cowards at the club who would rather take the easy way out. And Frank is one of them.