Toby Alderweireld launches scathing attack on Tottenham players as Romero, Van de Ven singled out | OneFootball

Former Tottenham centre-back Toby Alderweireld has launched a scathing attack on the current first-team squad for the predicament the club finds itself in, with Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven being named and shamed.

Alderweireld and fellow Belgian Jan Vertonghen formed one of the best central defensive pairings for Spurs in the Premier League era during Mauricio Pochettino’s tenure in north London. Indeed, the duo were part of a team that finished second in the league in 2017 and then reached the Champions League final two years later.

However, since Pochettino’s sacking seven years ago, Tottenham have been through multiple managers and have also lost some elite talent, ultimately leading to a slide down the table over the past two seasons, with Europa League success now very much viewed as more of an outlier.

Indeed, this season has seen the club lurch from one disaster to another and the club now sits 18th in the Premier League table, and are starring down the barrel of a first relegation in 49 years.

Now Alderweireld has taken shots at all aspects of how the club are currently operating, with Spurs working under their third manager of the season in Roberto De Zerbi. However, it’s the players who are the main focus of the Belgian’s wrath.

“I think you also need to start looking at pure quality,” Alderweireld told ESPN NL.

“What do big players do? What do quality players do? That is to be decisive at important moments, achieve your level … And that has not been happening all season.

“Players who were acquired for a lot of money but who nevertheless don’t deliver and not in just one or two matches or a period, but throughout the whole season.

“You just have to conclude that they are not good enough in terms of quality.”

Alderweireld also highlighted the staggering drop off in form of Romero and centre-back partner Van de Ven, with the former almost certain to move on this summer, regardless of relegation.

“I look at Romero, I look at Van de Ven … They just aren’t reaching their level,” he added. “Again, not for a period, but actually for an entire season.

“Then I also look at Romero who gets red cards too often, doesn’t make the right decisions and therefore lets his team down.”

Tottenham squad simply not good enough

With Spurs having moved on from both Thomas Frank and interim boss Igor Tudor this season and then losing De Zerbi’s first game in charge, Alderweireld insists it’s the players, not managers, who must take greater responsibility for the club’s downfall.

“Now you notice that the coach isn’t the problem, it’s really purely the squad,” Alderweireld said. “The quality in the squad, the responsibilities of the players. You could always put another coach in charge, but you notice that they just don’t deliver what they need to deliver.

“And that is ultimately just quality.”

However, he does feel that “structural problems” behind the scenes have also contributed to the club’s decline, adding: “It comes down to shaping the right people, the right team. And those purchases have gone wrong, and that has been happening year after year. So that is indeed a structural problem.

“I have also read that the club is run fantastically from a business perspective, but not as a football club and as a football club everything matters.

“Your value is on the pitch, and that shows what the club looks like. And that’s not good.”

To say this season has been a shambles is completely correct, and unless the club starts winning soon – starting with Saturday’s must-win clash at home to Brighton – a first relegation since 1977 will be on.

With regards Romero’s next club, our transfer correspondent, Fraser Fletcher, revealed back in March