Tottenham will assess Cristian Romero before a decision is made on his availability to face Manchester United next weekend after the centre-half was forced off following a clash of heads in the 2-2 draw with Brentford.
Head coach Ange Postecoglou afterwards revealed Spurs did not use a concussion substitute to replace Romero with Davinson Sanchez, having “filled out the wrong slip”, but if an assessment by the club's medical staff confirm a concussion he will be subject to the Premier League's return-to-play protocols, leaving him unavailable for at least six days.
Romero went down following an aerial challenge with Bryan Mbeumo but remained on the pitch for a few more minutes, opening the scoring with a powerful header.
Immediately after the goal, Postecoglou moved to replace Romero with Sanchez but the Argentine was initially unwilling come off, repeatedly signalling that he wanted to continue before reluctantly leaving the field.
Afterwards, Romero wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “I’m fine, just one blow.”
Postecoglou said he was unsure if Romero would be available to play against United but insisted he would “shut up and listen to the doctors”.
The Australian said: “He got a head knock and it was pretty clear. The medical team were monitoring him as he progressed from there and then he scored with his head.
“They were pretty sure we needed for his own benefit to get him off and obviously what we know about head injuries, for me it is not even an issue.
“We will always err on the side of caution. Cristian, the player, is not the one you listen to in those situation because he doesn't know what is going either, so I thought it was pretty clear what we had to do.
“Disappointed that we apparently filled out the wrong slip and it was not a concussion sub. In this day and age where what we know about head injuries, if we are going to worry about what form we fill out, I thought it was pretty clear what happened but hopefully he'll be okay.”
