Tottenham Hotspur star Guglielmo Vicario has heaped praise on two of his Spurs teammates.
Ange Postecoglou‘s side missed out on Champions League football after finishing the season with just two wins in their final seven Premier League games.
That is not good enough, but there are still a lot of positives Tottenham can take from the Australian’s debut season. Vicario has had his say on one of them.
Guglielmo Vicario makes admission about Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven
Individually, Tottenham have a fantastic back five.
Spurs brought in Guglielmo Vicario and Micky van de Ven in the summer of 2023, while Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro were signed in the two windows prior.
Cristian Romero has been at Spurs since 2021 after initially joining the club on loan in 2021. Tottenham made that move permanent for £42.5 million in the following year (Daily Mail).
These five players form Spurs’ first-choice defence, and all of them have had very impressive individual seasons in the Premier League.
The two centre-halves, in particular, have been Spurs’ best players.
Van de Ven has been a revelation since his arrival, while Romero has shown immense maturity and has taken his game to another level under Postecoglou.
Vicario has been really impressed with both of them and has gone as far as admitting that his two centre-backs are the best defenders he has ever played with.
He told Football London: “Cuti, well I don’t need to use too many words on Cuti! He won the World Cup in 2022 so I’m not the right person to speak about him.
“He’s a massive player.
“And Micky, of course, has been outstanding. In the way we play, with the high line, his speed has been very, very important for us.
“I’m very proud. I can say they are the best defenders I’ve played with so I’m very proud of that. Praise to them for a big season but next season we want to do better.”
READ MORE: Cristian Romero labels £40m Tottenham star a ‘top player’ after final game of the season
The worrying statistic about Tottenham’s defence
You can’t really have a go at any of Tottenham’s back five this season.
Vicario, Porro, Romero, Van de Ven and Udogie are all candidates for the Spurs Player of the Year award – all of them deserve a lot of praise.
When you see everyone raving about those five players, you would imagine that Tottenham’s defence was very good in the 2023/24 season.
However, Spurs conceded 61 goals in 38 games in the Premier League, the joint-worst record among the top five clubs in the country.
What makes it worse is that Spurs conceded an xGA of 72.2, which means they gave their opponents opportunities to score 11 more goals than they did (Understat).
That is a really poor statistic and is one that has to improve if the North Londoners want to finish higher in the table next season.