Tottenham captain Cristian Romero described it as “disgraceful” that Spurs had only 11 players available for their game against Manchester City.
Thomas Frank is under pressure after a run of six Premier League games without a win that has left Tottenham 14th in the table. They recovered from two goals down to salvage a 2-2 draw with City on Sunday.
Romero, who was forced off at half-time through illness after struggling in the midweek trip to Eintracht Frankfurt, posted on Instagram on Monday, reflecting his frustration at the club’s situation.
“Great effort from all my teammates yesterday, they were incredible,” Romero wrote. “I wanted to be available to help them even though I wasn’t feeling well, especially since we only had 11 players available – unbelievable but true and disgraceful.
“We’ll keep showing up and taking responsibility to turn this around, working hard and staying together. All that’s left is to thank all of you for being there and for always supporting us.”
This is the second recent instance of Romero airing frustrations on social media. After Tottenham’s 3-2 defeat to Bournemouth last month he appeared to criticise the club hierarchy for “lies” in a post he later edited; the phrase “to tell a few lies” was removed and Frank called Romero’s post a “mistake” he would defend.
Why have Spurs been left so short?
Tottenham currently have more injured players than any other Premier League club, with 13 absentees, many long-term. James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski have been unavailable all season. Rodrigo Bentancur, Mohammed Kudus, Lucas Bergvall, Richarlison, Ben Davies, Kevin Danso and Pedro Porro are also out. With minor concerns over Djed Spence, Micky van de Ven and Dominic Solanke, Frank faces further selection dilemmas ahead of the visit to Manchester United on Saturday.
In this transfer window Tottenham have added Conor Gallagher from Atletico Madrid and young Brazilian left-back Souza from Santos. There was reported interest in Antoine Semenyo, who instead joined Manchester City. The club believes better options are more likely to be available in the summer, when it plans to invest heavily.