Tottenham Hotspur defender Pedro Porro was dubbed “unbelievably bad” by Tim Sherwood on his Spurs debut.
The Lowdown: Tough afternoon
Antonio Conte finally got his man in the dying days of the January window, with Spurs signing the right-back on an initial loan worth £5m with an obligation to buy for £39m (Sky Sports).
The 23-year-old and Spurs were sent crashing back down to earth with a thud in the first half, with them trailing 3-1 at the break against Premier League strugglers Leicester City after beating Manchester City 1-0 just six days earlier.
It looked as those Spurs had got off to the best start possible in their attempts to make it three Premier League wins in succession after Rodrigo Bentancur opened the scoring after 14 minutes, but the Foxes smashed back by bagging three before half-time, including two in two minutes to turn the clash on its head, before comfortably seeing off the Lilywhites in the second half.
The Latest: Sherwood’s grilling
Former Tottenham manager Sherwood was reporting on the game on Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday (11/02/2023, 3.44pm) when he couldn’t escape the nightmare that the Spaniard was enduring on his bow.
He said: “Interesting footnote, Pedro Porro making his debut for Tottenham today, he’s all over the place. I mean, if you thought someone was going to come in for Antonio Conte, you’d have thought they’d be good at defending.
“The boy just wants to run forward, he wants to play as a winger, he’s getting the ball played inside him, he’s going to ground at the wrong time, Harvey Barnes is having a field day out there. It’ll be interesting to keep an eye on that one.”
And after Leicester had originally thought they’d added a fourth - only for VAR to intervene and chalk it off - Sherwood spoke about Porro’s defending (4:30pm), adding:
“I don’t want to keep picking on the kid, but he needs to be relieved of his duties at the moment. I’m giving the benefit of the doubt because it’s his debut, but Pedro Porro is so bad, it’s unbelievable. His positioning is absolutely disgusting. Barnes and Maddison are destroying him down the left-hand side.”
The Verdict: Terrible beginning
It was far from the debut that Porro would’ve been hoping for with him replacing Emerson Royal in the starting XI - and Conte could well be welcoming the Brazilian immediately back into the starting lineup based on this display.
His ability as an attacking player has been clear throughout his season at Sporting and didn’t leave many raising their eyebrows given his five goals and seven assists coming from right wing-back this term.
However, he clearly needs work defensively, and under Conte, that’s exactly what you expect will be worked on. It’s a dire start, but with AC Milan, West Ham United and Chelsea to come on the horizon, he won't get an easy time to settle in.