Tottenham Hotspur may have just blown their chance of making the top four this season after they were thrashed 6-1 by rivals Newcastle United on Sunday afternoon.
Cristian Stellini’s side were five goals down inside 21 minutes in what was an utter capitulation from his backline, who had surprisingly been deployed in a back four, rather than a back three.
It meant that Eric Dier partnered Cristian Romero in the middle, an experiment that saw neither player muster up a rating better than 5.6 on Sofascore, with attack-minded duo Ivan Perisic and Pedro Porro acting as full-backs.
This quickly became a disastrous move by the Italian interim boss as he left the likes of Porro and Dier exposed by the Magpies’ ruthless frontline, where both Alexander Isak and Jacob Murphy bagged themselves braces.
How did Pedro Porro play vs Newcastle?
After the aforementioned duo and substituted goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, the Spanish defender was Stellini’s lowest-rated performer and he was arguably at fault for as many as four of Newcastle’s goals, being done by Joelinton on more than one occasion.
His display was lambasted by Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher, who took to Twitter to say that the 23-year-old – who cost Spurs in the region of £40m – “can’t defend” and echoed comments from former Lilywhites boss Tim Sherwood not so long ago after Porro made his debut for the club: “Pedro Porro is so bad it’s unbelievable,” he said.
Indeed, no player lost possession of the ball more than the former Sporting CP dynamo, squandering the ball as many as 20 times and considering he had 68 touches, that was a third of the time he was in control, so it’s no wonder Tottenham had just 43% possession in the whole game, via Sofascore.
The Evening Standard’s Dan Kilpatrick was equally scathing about Porro in his post-match column as he wrote: ‘Dreadfully exposed as a full-back in a back four. Joelinton easily beat him ahead of Murphy’s opener and then ran behind him to double Spurs’ lead.
Elsewhere on the pitch, the £85k-per-week dud was dribbled past on two occasions and he could only win three of his nine duels, of which none were in the air.
Porro’s wayward passing didn’t help matters either as his 67% accuracy from 47 attempts was comfortably the second-worst of any outfield player, whilst only one of his four crossing attempts found a Spurs player too.
All in all, it was another low point for anyone associated with the club.
It has been a difficult season, both on and off the pitch, and this result has only compounded their woes further as they look certain to miss out on the Premier League’s top four, spearheaded by the inability to defend from the likes of Porro and Dier, both of whom would be lucky to start against Manchester United on Thursday night.
