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Tottenham Hotspur lost 4-3 against Chelsea in the Premier League on Sunday
Tottenham Hotspur boss Ange Postecoglou admitted that Cristian Romero’s injury is “hugely disappointing” after the centre-back lasted just 14 minutes against Chelsea after picking up a quad problem.
Romero and Micky van de Ven both returned to the starting line-up after spells out as Spurs threw away a 2-0 lead to lose 4-3 against Chelsea at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Romero’s injury meant Van de Ven played longer than planned as he went down late in the game but Postecoglou played down any concerns. Brennan Johnson was also withdraw but he was feeling ill.
“Romero is just obviously hugely disappointing,” Postecoglou said afterwards. “He felt something in his quad. He trained really well. He wasn't the one I was worried about, to be honest, but it's just the way the season's going for us unfortunately.So we just have to wait and see. Brennan just didn't feel well. He didn't feel well at half-time, but he wanted to give it a go, but he just wasn't feeling 100 per cent, so I had to take him off. And then, well, the plan was always for Micky to play 60, 70 [minutes] today. Obviously, I thought Romero would be okay to play 90, but Mickey, probably 60,70. So we were always going take him off. He didn't feel anything significant. He just felt tightness, but we were always going to take him off anyway.”
On Romero, he continued: “It's a totally different injury, but also people I'm sure are aware of our situation. It's not like I've got a multitude of options there, so, you know, you've got to make these decisions. Both players trained and tried well, and they both wanted to help. So you make these decisions with all the best information. Like I said, it's not like Romero re-injured his toe, it's a totally different injury, which could happen at any time.”
Postecoglou was disappointed after with some of the decisions from the officials after Moises Caicedo caught Pape Sarr high on the shin but the Chelsea man was not even booked with VAR failing to intervene.
The Spurs boss said: “There’s a couple of decisions I thought today that definitely went against us. It almost feels like no-one is in control because everybody is scared to make a decision to overturn somebody else. Referees are scared to make decisions in case they get it wrong, VAR don’t want to intervene and I get that because you don’t want disruptions to the game. You just have to cop out. We worked awfully hard, but to give away two goals and you give away two penalties unnecessarily against a quality side anyway, you make things very difficult for yourself.”
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