Tottenham Hotspur defender Cristian Romero has been branded as lucky by pundit Sue Smith to have not picked up a red card in the north London derby.
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Antonio Conte’s men were put to the sword on Sunday afternoon in their north London home by their bitter rivals and Premier League leaders, Arsenal.
It was an afternoon everyone involved with Spurs will be wanting to forget with Mikel Arteta’s side cruising to a fairly comfortable 2-0 victory.
And it seems the afternoon could have been made even worse for the Lilywhites with their Argentine centre-back, Romero, walking a tightrope with the referee Craig Pawson.
Speaking on Sky Sports’ Ref Watch, Smith labelled the 24-year-old as extremely fortunate not to have picked up a second yellow card for a challenge on Arsenal’s Granit Xhaka:
“Yeah, and I think sometimes it’s like the amount of times, isn’t it? So it’s like how many tackles – he obviously got a yellow card. You’ve just got to be so careful when you’re continually doing those things.
“So yeah, he was probably lucky for that one not to have gotten the yellow.”
Typical Romero?
Romero arrived in north London in the summer of 2021 on the back of an impressive campaign in Serie A with Atalanta which saw him named the Serie A Defender of the Year.
And he certainly carried that form over to the Premier League with the Sky Sports pundit, Jamie Carragher, hailing him as his signing of the season.
However, one of the issues the Argentine has also carried over from Italy is his poor discipline record which saw him pick up 15 yellow cards over the 2020/21 campaign.
In his first season in north London, Romero only featured 22 times in the Premier League but managed to pick up eight yellows in the space of just 13 games (via Transfermarkt).
Romero has certainly carried on this poor discipline record this season with the Argentine already picking up three yellow cards in his 11 league appearances.
And we have to agree with Smith in that he can count himself lucky not to have been forced into an earl shower on Monday after some of the challenges he threw himself into whilst already on a yellow card.
The one of Xhaka will likely split opinions among fans. The reality is it did not look like the Argentine connected with Xhaka who was left in a pile on the floor seemingly awaiting Pawson to reach for his cards.
However, in a game of that magnitude, whilst already on a yellow card, to go in as recklessly as he did on Xhaka is a real concern.
Spurs did not concede any further goals after that incident, but they certainly could have been left much more vulnerable if he was shown a red card.
And with a huge game on Thursday coming up against Manchester City, this would have been the last thing the Spurs backline could have done with.
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