Whatever Cuti Romero felt in the warmup before Tottenham’s loss at home to Aston Villa on Sunday, it’s bad enough that he hasn’t made the trip to the Principality of Monaco today. Spurs are set to kick off against Monaco in the Champions League group phase tomorrow, and Romero is one of a trio of first team players who are confirmed out, along with Destiny Udogie and Ben Davies.
Speaking to the media ahead of tomorrow’s match, head coach Thomas Frank said Romero’s injury is an “adductor strain,” and
also addressed Udogie’s absence, which he called “knee irritation.”
“No [Udogie didn’t travel]. The latest is that we got that knee irritation after international duty that we are assessing and working very hard to get on top of. We will know more probably day by day or next week.”
Not great, obviously, but it is what it is. Tottenham will almost certainly pair Micky van de Ven with Kevin Danso, like what we saw on Sunday. And while this isn’t good news either, we’re also guaranteed not to see a #narrative-laden goal from a former Tottenham player — Eric Dier sustained a hamstring injury this past week and has also been ruled out of the match.
Danso was asked about stepping into Romero’s role in the back line and said he’s ready and prepared to go out and do what it takes to win.
“Definitely [conscious of Romero’s absence] but also [I’ll] just try to fulfill the role the best I can. Obviously he’s a very important player for us and for me it’s just doing a job, defending first and foremost and trying to replace him as best I can. I think [Sunday vs. Villa] was an OK game, unfortunately we didn’t get the result we wanted to, but the aim is to win here tomorrow.”
Frank also addressed another elephant in the room — the disappearance of Brennan Johnson. BJ has seen his playing time and his goal production drop precipitously this season compared to last. And while there’s a new sheriff in charge and a change in tactics, it’s still been noticeable. Frank said that it’s all just part of the process, and that there will be plenty of games for Brennan to play.
“I think, for me, Brennan is a very important player. He had a fantastic, important goal last season. Also the top scorer, I think, in the club last year. He also started the season well. He has scored two good goals. So, again, probably a little bit down to how do we put the players out that make it fit.
“Brennan has trained very well the last couple of weeks, doing what he’s doing very well, scoring goals in training, which is important to keep [doing], showing that I’m not taking the right decision if he’s not in the team. I think Brennan can play both to the left and to the right, as we said before. Of course, Mohammed Kudus has done very well on the right, for example. Then on the left, I actually think Wilson has done well. So it’s just a little bit of competition. Brennan just needs to keep going. He will get his games.”
Spurs are currently 12th in the group table with one win and one draw from its first two matches. It’s early, but at present that puts Spurs 12th in the table — outside of the automatic bye positions, but still well enough to move to the knockout round of the competition. There are no easy matches in the Champions League, especially away, but with upcoming games away to PSG and home to Dortmund, getting a result against a solid Monaco team away from home would do a lot of good towards their chances.
Spurs kick off against Monaco at 3 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. BST on Wednesday. The match will be televised on TNT Sports in the United Kingdom, and is streamed on Amazon Prime in the UK and Paramount+ in USA.
