Postecoglou responds as Cristian Romero points finger at Daniel Levy for Tottenham woes

Ange Postecoglou says Cristian Romero is a “human being” after the Tottenham centre-back appeared to point the finger of blame at Daniel Levy for the club’s struggles.

Romero was forced off injured as Tottenham gave up a two-goal lead to lose 4-3 to Chelsea on Sunday; a defeat which leaves them 11th in the Premier League having lost seven of their 15 games so far this season.

Postecoglou has come under significant pressure as a result and is currently third in the sack race, but after the loss to the Blues Romero made it clear he didn’t think his manager was to blame.

Asked if Tottenham were suffering over limited spending and a lack of depth, the centre back told Telemundo Deportes: “The truth is, I would say no comment, but…

“Manchester City competes every year, you see how Liverpool strengthens its squad, Chelsea strengthens their squad, doesn’t do well, strengthens again, and now they’re seeing results. Those are the things to imitate.

“You have to realise that something is going wrong, hopefully, they realise it.

“The last few years, it’s always the same: first, the players, then the coaching staff changes, and it’s always the same people responsible.

“Hopefully, they realise who the true responsible ones are, and we move forward because it’s a beautiful club that, with the structure it has, could easily be competing for the title every year.”

Since Postecoglou’s arrival in July 2023, Spurs have spent around £350million but have failed to push for trophies having claimed just one gong – the League Cup in 2008 – since Levy became a member of the board in 2000.

Romero backed Postecoglou after Sunday’s loss, saying: “He’s a great coach. We saw it in the first season. In this second one we’ve suffered a lot of injuries.

“Players are the first one to be criticised, then if we lose 10 games, the staff can be changed, but nobody talks about what is actually happening.

“We are very happy with this staff, me and my colleagues. We love how they work and the football they try to play. We’ll try to move on quickly.”

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Postecoglou says Romero was in an “emotional” state after the defeat to Chelsea and revealed that the defender “apologised” of airing his dirty laundry in public.

The Spurs boss said: “In the context of the day, Cristian was really disappointed obviously. More than disappointed in that he’d worked hard to get back, it was a big game for obviously, he knew that, and he had to go off and then watch the team have to feel the pain of another defeat in the manner it happened. He was obviously very emotional. He’s a leader in the club, he hasn’t been able to help us, I think it was his way of trying to as a leader help us in the group.

“We’re going through a tough time and he believes in what we’re doing. And then the other part of it probably he went about it the wrong way. He’s passionate about having success at the club and the way he expressed it was not the right way in a public sense. I don’t feel and it’s certainly not my belief that our challenges at the moment are down to one thing or one person, I don’t believe that, I never have believed that.

“Whatever we need to do, we have the power to do that but it’ll only happen if we stay united as a group particularly through difficult times, get through to the other side. I fully believe if you can do that, you come out stronger. Cristian realises what he said…a lot of what he said was good, some wasn’t right and shouldn’t have been done in public. We deal with these things in our own four walls. There’s always issues we need to deal with. The same way I wouldn’t criticise a player or anyone else, we shouldn’t be doing that in a public sense.

“I’ve already spoken to Christian about it and and you know, he’s apologised for the fact that the way he said it, particularly in the public sense, wasn’t the right way to go about things. He’s a human being, he got emotional and I think he just expressed what he wanted to express, probably in the wrong way.

“He does care. I think it would have been easy for him not to say anything. He does care, but there’s a way to do these things and a way to express yourself and the way he did it wasn’t the right way.”