Tottenham head coach Ange Postecoglou has said that Cristian Romero‘s perceived criticism of the club’s hierarchy following the team’s 4-3 home defeat to Chelsea on Sunday was not handled in the right way by the player and revealed he has apologised for his comments.
In an interview to Spanish broadcaster Telemundo Deportes in which he criticised Spurs’ lack of spending in comparison to their rivals, adding: “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.”
Postecoglou, who has seen his position as Spurs head coach come under serious pressure following a string of disappointing results, said that he felt some of Romero’s comments were “good,” but the Argentina international had gone about things in the wrong way.
“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,” Postecoglou told a news conference on Wednesday.
“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 Cristian about it and you know, he has 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.”
Postecoglou will be without his first-choice partnership in the centre of defence for Thursday’s trip to face Rangers in the Europa League after Romero and Micky van de Ven exited the Chelsea defeat with new fitness issues.
Spurs have been hit with several injuries to key players this season and Postecoglou, who said this is the worst injury crisis of his managerial career, could be without as many as eight first-team players for the match at Ibrox.
The absences of Romero, Van de Ven and Ben Davies (hamstring) means 18-year-old midfielder Archie Gray, who has been predominantly used as a right-back this season, is likely to partner Radu Dragusin in the centre of Spurs’ defence in Glasgow.
“I have to get creative,” Postecoglou said. “I think Archie’s probably the one for us at the moment that we need to try and get to fill in there. He’s done right-back, left-back for us. He’s had to play at centre-back a little bit this year — he did during the pre-season. With him and Radu, they’re the two main sort of defenders.
“We’ve still got five or six games to navigate, so we may have to get creative at some point and deal with it in a different way.”
Thursday’s game marks Postecoglou’s return to Scotland where he won five major honours as Celtic coach between 2021 and 2023. The 59-year-old said the match against Rangers was the game “of most interest” to him when the draw was made.
Meanwhile, Rangers boss Philippe Clement backed his team to pull off a famous victory over the out-of-form Premier League club.
“Everything can be bridged in one night,” Clement said. “I had the luck, and it’s not only luck, it’s also a lot of hard work, as a player and as a manager, to have several nights where the gap was amazingly big.
“And those are also the best nights. If you then perform and you get the results, those are also the nights that you remember all of your life.”
Five matches into their Europa League campaign, Spurs are outside the automatic qualification places for round of 16 — one place below Rangers who sit eighth.
