Argentine journalist declares Romero “fine” for Spurs’ Champions League match vs Sporting

Take this with a huge grain of salt, but there’s some potentially good news on the injury front. According to Argentine football journalist Gaston Edul, Tottenham Hotspur central defender Cuti Romero is “fine” to play for Spurs in tomorrow’s critical Champions League match against Sporting Lisbon.

Cuti Romero is fine. He was carrying muscular fatigue. He’s good to play minutes in the Champions League.

Hey, that sounds pretty good! And it is! In his press conference today, Conte ruled out both Richarlison and Deki Kulusevski from consideration, and hedged on both Cuti and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, both of whom missed Sunday’s match against Newcastle. Having Cuti back would be fan-bloody-tastic, especially after a rather dispiriting defensive performance a couple of days ago.

But just because an Argentine journalist says it doesn’t mean he’ll play. No doubt Edul is getting his information directly from Cuti’s camp — that’s usually how these things work — but Romero signaling that he’s ready to play doesn’t necessarily mean Conte or Tottenham’s medical staff will agree. Conte has already shown to be highly reticent to take chances with player injuries. He’s ruled out players in the past for a “5% chance“ of aggravating injury because he doesn’t want to take risks with his best players, so I wouldn’t necessarily get my hopes up that Cuti would start against Sporting tomorrow.

But even having him on the bench gives Conte an additional option, and if he could come in as a late substitute to get some minutes back on his legs, that’d be a pretty good outcome as well. We’ll have to see. The signs are promising, at least.

Tottenham can clinch progression to the knockout stages of the Champions League with a win over Sporting and a Marseille win over Eintracht Frankfurt.